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Benjamin Kabak

A far cry from the subway system’s bad old days

by Benjamin Kabak November 8, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 8, 2011

An October derailment have many fearing the bad old days. (Photo via @NYCTSubwayScoop)

Remember the bad old days? Remember when the subways weren’t safe, when track fires and derailments ran rampant, when trains weren’t air conditioned but were covered in graffiti and Bernard Goetz came to stand for a generation of New Yorkers too scared to use transit after dark? Remember cars that lost power, doors that wouldn’t open and public address systems that wouldn’t address? Anyone old enough who’s lived in New York City long enough certainly does.

While I came off age in the city toward the tail end of those dark days for the city and its transit network, I’ve heard the horror stories and read the news clippings often enough to know that no one wants to relive those days. The transit network, which has rebounded from the 1970s and 1980s to carry over 5 million passengers per day, has become too vital to slip back into that morass of decay and neglect.

For the past few years, though, fears of a regression have crept into news coverage of the subways. It’s certainly true that deferred maintenance brought about by an underfunded capital plan will risk sending the subways into a lull, but over the past 25 years, the MTA has invested heavily in its state of good repair. Although stations and their components aren’t up to par, the tracks, switches and signals that truly count are in far better shape than the naked eye can see. If the station walls are crumbling, riders are willing to overlook cosmetic blemishes as long as the trains run regularly and quickly.

When accidents happen though — such as the derailment on the 6 train the other week — the fears creep up a notch. At Transportation Nation yesterday, Jim O’Grady spoke to some riders who worry about the bad old days. The October 24 incident was the third derailment in six months, but no one was injured as the train jumped the tracks early in the morning. Still, New Yorkers like to fret, and fret they shall. “If they keep cutting the budget and keep raising the fare, less people will be able to ride it and it won’t be as reliable,” Straphanger Amber Morgan said.

O’Grady, who isn’t waxing nostalgic, notes how the system isn’t bad when we use its nadir as a comparison, but he notes that not everything is wine and roses these days. He writes:

Budget cuts have made some things worse. Recent NY MTA data show a 20 percent increase in trains arriving more than five minutes late at the end of their runs. But New York City Transit President Tom Prendergast said major service disruptions — like those caused by derailments — are not worsening because of belt-tightening

“We do not think it’s in any way related to budget issues or financial issues,” he said. “We treat every derailment very seriously. I mean, I was here at a point in time twenty years ago, when we had 27 derailments a year.”

Surprisingly, Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign agrees with Prendergast. He said the NY MTA’s average of less than two derailments per year over the last five years is not bad. But Russianoff added delays and overcrowding are other matters. “You know, it’s not the bad old days yet,” he said. “But you have to worry about going down the slippery slope.”

As much as I believe that Albany has failed the MTA and that the MTA’s debt bomb could have tremendous consequences for the operating budget and fares down the road, the system simply isn’t re-entering the bad old days. We’re not going to see 27 derailments per year as the MTA once averaged; we’re not going to see track fires and broken-down trains. The MTA’s current fleet of rolling stock and its obsessive attention to track beds and in-tunnel infrastructure has insured our system against such an immediate future. A one-off derailment happens.

The real worries though are about the long-term future. If the MTA doesn’t get the infusion of capital it needs and if it can’t continue to invest over the next 10, 15 or 20 years, then we can begin to worry. The system broke down in the 1970s and 1980s because rolling stock that had long outlived its shelf life was still being pressed into service each day while track beds and signal systems that were 40-70 years old weren’t being maintained and upgraded.

It’s very tough for those of us living in the here and now to see beyond our immediate needs. I want my train to arrive quickly in the morning when I come to work, and I don’t want to wait out a sick passenger or pushy straphangers. The fears and concerns about the bad old days though lurk in the distant background. They won’t crop up tomorrow, next week or next month. But do we have the foresight today to avoid a disaster in 2025 or 2035? With the MTA’s debt levels rising, I don’t think we do.

November 8, 2011 24 comments

Subway Maps

Map of the Day: The Gotham City Subway

by Benjamin Kabak November 7, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 7, 2011

In fictional universes, subway systems do not have to make much sense. (Photo via Brian Donohue of The Star-Ledger. Click to enlarge.)

Via The Star-Ledger comes this glimpse at an alternate-universe subway map. Posted outside of the Newark Subway stop at Military Park late last week, this map shows how the subways run throughout Bruce Wayne’s Gotham City. Frankly, the whole thing is a bit of a mess with subways criss-crossing each other and the city at odd angles. Routes feature steep curves, some unnecessarily close stops and some zany transfer options. On the bright side, Gotham City planners have certainly managed to provide for some better inter-borough subway connections than we have in New York, and their subway system runs to Batman’s equivalent of Staten Island.

November 7, 2011 21 comments

Buses Public Transit Policy

On Greyhound and connecting transit modalities

by Benjamin Kabak November 7, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 7, 2011

The Greyhound Bus Terminal on 33rd and 34th Streets between Seventh and Eighth Avenues shown here in 1936. (Photo via the New York Public Library)

Whenever New Yorkers grow nostalgic over Penn Station, it is by and large on aesthetic grounds. The current Penn Station is a far cry from a Great Public Building. There are no iconic images of light spilling into a grand hall. Rather, it is a dank, cramped, dirty and smelly station that doesn’t inspire kind feelings.

In addition to their looks, though, railroad stations serve functional roles as well. They need to have capacity to shuttle commuters into and out of the central business district of their host cites and should allow for intermodal connections as well. To a certain extent, both Penn Station and Grand Central realize that goal as New York’s two main rail depots offer easy connections to numerous subway lines. But what of the buses?

In an ideal world, bus terminals and rail stations would go hand-in-hand. In Boston and Washington, DC, for example, Greyhound delivers its riders to the main rail station. South Station serves as the terminus for Amtrak and the rides to Boston while DC’s Union Station features a Greyhound stop around back. In New York, the main bus depot at Port Authority is a subway ride away from the Amtrak stop at Penn Station and a subway ride away from Grand Central. It may offer up subway connections, but it leads to some convoluted rides.

It wasn’t always like this. In The Times this weekend, Christopher Gray delves into the history of a forgotten Greyhound depot that used to live where One Penn Plaza is now. In 1963, the terminal was torn down after Greyhound and Port Authority spent years fighting over the building. The PA wanted Greyhound to move to its then-new terminal at 42nd St. while Greyhound wanted to maintain its spot above Penn Station. Gray writes:

Greyhound was a consortium of different lines, including Pennsylvania Greyhound, half owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1935 the railroad cleared a through-block site just north of the station, from 33rd to 34th, for the new Pennsylvania Greyhound Bus Terminal….

In 1945, the Port Authority proposed its own single consolidated bus terminal, at Eighth Avenue and 40th Street, saying that intercity bus traffic jammed the streets. Part of the plan was a rooftop landing strip, 500 feet long, for what the authority called “the flying bus of the future.”

By this time the modernistic Greyhound terminal was not just a stop for travelers, but the haunt of vagrants, delinquents and petty criminals. In 1947 a police inspector called it the worst spot in Midtown. Five years later two escapees from the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane waiting for a bus to Baltimore were caught by police officers with drawn guns. Nonetheless, Greyhound resisted the Port Authority plan. It liked its central location just fine, and had no need to help small operators gain the advantage of a union terminal. The city retaliated by prohibiting any bus terminal expansion in Midtown. The Port Authority completed its big, bland terminal in 1950, counting on Greyhound’s eventual capitulation — it was the biggest dog by far among the carriers.

The Port Authority’s bus terminal is located with direct access to the Lincoln Tunnel and out of the way of surface streets. Today, though, buses have made a resounding return to the Penn Station area as many of the discount offerings such as Bolt Bus provide pick-up service on the streets near 34th St. in order to avoid paying the PA’s gate fees.

As Gray notes, no one in New York expresses much nostalgia over the fate of the art moderne terminal. It didn’t spark debates over historic preservation as tearing down Penn Station did. But its place in history serves as a reminder of a time when, by design, ownership and economics, the city’s bus terminal offered up something more than a subway ride as a connection with the commuter and long-distance rail hub. It was a more sensible approach toward intermodal transit connections.

November 7, 2011 18 comments

MTA Politics

A whole Lhota problems loom for the MTA

by Benjamin Kabak November 7, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 7, 2011

Joseph Lhota will assume his role atop the MTA with a long list of worries.

As the MTA has weathered one financial crisis after another and as the agency has gone through various CEOs, chairmen and executive directors over the past five years, the authority’s political situation hasn’t improved. Elected officials use the MTA as a personal piñata, highlighting the ills of the bloated bureaucracy while ignoring the systemic problems that stem from Albany’s unwillingness to answer tough questions about transportation policy. It’s little wonder the MTA’s most qualified leaders have left or been pushed out long before their terms are up.

This week marks yet another new era as Joseph Lhota takes over as interim head of the MTA. Nominated a few weeks ago by Andrew Cuomo, Lhota won’t lose the interim title until the State Senate gets around to approving him, but those hearings aren’t expected to reach the legislative calendar until January. When they do, you can bet that representatives will pepper Lhota with everything they’ve got with a special focus on the payroll tax, but in the meantime, the MTA’s problems wait for no one.

In advance of Lhota’s star turn atop the MTA, Crain’s New York, one of the most influential business magazines in New York that really seems to get it with respect to transit policy, has some advice for Lhota. The paper’s editorial board wants the new chair, without his transit background, to continue to move the MTA forward, and to do so, they urge him to follow the path forged over the past two years by Jay Walder. Essentially, they want Lhota to be Walder but with the backing of Cuomo and the focus on streamlining management which allowed Lhota to draw praise when he served New York City under Rudolph Giuiliani.

To welcome Lhota, Crain’s warns that he is “in for a wild ride.” The MTA suffers from “an image problem, a budget problem, a political problem and a labor problem: It has a reputation for overspending, its capital plan could soon run out of money, it is distrusted by legislators, and its unions are obstinate.” Sounds like a fun job, no? They continue:

Despite all that, the MTA is in better shape than most U.S. transit systems. Midday trains in Washington, D.C., for example, show up only every 20 minutes. But no American city relies more on mass transit than New York, so forget the comparisons. The point to remember is that the better the MTA functions, the more our regional economy flourishes. When the fragile, century-old system breaks down, the economic loss is incalculable.

That is often forgotten because critics focus on the MTA’s spending, which could reach $17 billion next year. Of course, we agree that fiscal efficiency is also important—both to limit fare increases and to make politicians amenable to increasing transit funding. The MTA has a larger budget than most states and is routinely mocked by the media, making it easy for elected officials to bluster about its wastefulness. But the outgoing chief, Jay Walder, squeezed $4 billion out of the five-year capital plan, slashed $525 million from annual operating expenses (only $93 million through service cuts) and trimmed 10% from the $550 million overtime budget—a creditworthy performance. Mr. Lhota must persuade lawmakers that the agency has become leaner, and get them to fund the next three years of the agency’s capital plan so the MTA doesn’t resort to running up debt.

Mr. Lhota is known for his political skills and connections, but it will be hard for him to get help from the Republican-controlled state Senate, which voted this year to eviscerate the payroll tax that sends the MTA $1.5 billion a year. Assembly Democrats killed that legislation but show no sign of providing the funding increase the MTA needs to maintain buses, trains and tracks. Mr. Lhota should remind the Legislature that every failure of old MTA equipment not only inconveniences thousands of riders but costs businesses and the government money.

Crain’s advises Lhota on a few of the challenges he faces over the next few months. The business magazine wants the new MTA head to focus on arcane work rules as he negotiates with the TWU, and they want him to use cost savings to fund capital projects and not, as the union will want, wage increases. They also want Lhota to ensure that Cuomo is more responsive to the needs of transit riders and signs the lockbox bill that has languished on his desk for months.

Transit, ultimately and much to my chagrin, isn’t an issue that riles up voters as much as it should. Generally, straphangers who ride the subways are more attuned to those politicians who bash the MTA for failing to provide “adequate service” while constantly raising fares and cutting costs, routes or cleaning positions. Yet, that failures stems from the actions of those who oversee the MTA and its funding apparati. If Lhota has a mandate to cut, cut, cut, the MTA won’t be any better off in two years than it is today, but if the new head is willing to take the political clout he has to improve the system, moving forward won’t be an unattainable goal.

November 7, 2011 9 comments

Asides View from Underground

Casting The Power Broker movie

by Benjamin Kabak November 3, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 3, 2011

I’m out of the country for a few days relaxing on the beach at Turks & Caicos celebrating both a friend’s wedding and my passing the New York bar this week. I couldn’t leave you, dear readers, with nothing to discuss. So let’s delve into something I’ve had on tap for a few days: Robert Moses.

As The Hollywood Reporter reported last week, Oliver Stone is set to direct an HBO film based on Robert Caro’s epic tome The Power Broker. To truly capture the depths of the book, the movie would have to last approximately 19 hours, but something tells me they’ll cut it down. The natural question, of course, concerns casting. Who would you tab to play Robert Moses? I’m a Kevin Spacey fan myself. He always brings the right mix of suave likability and cunning evilness to his roles as the villain.

And then of course, there are the other roles: Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Jane Jacobs. It’s a veritable who’s who in New York urban policy and planning. It will be the downfall of Robert Moses as told by Oliver Stone. I can’t wait.

November 3, 2011 73 comments

Subway Advertising

Photo of the Day: Video ads take over Columbus Circle

by Benjamin Kabak November 3, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 3, 2011

Big Brother-style video ads line the concourse at Columbus Circle. (Photo courtesy of New York City Transit)

For the past few years, the MTA has engaged in a comprehensive overhaul of the 59th St.-Columbus Circle station. The renovation was originally supposed to wrap in 2009, but like many a TA project, it didn’t finish on time. Instead, work continued until one day, it stopped. There was no grand ribbon-cutting and nothing to announce substantial completion of the project.

Lately, though, the MTA has been putting some of the station on display. Sol Lewitt’s work adorns the station, and straphangers can once again use the middle platform on the IND platform. Still, it seems as though something is missing. Early renderings of the project, for example, called for a retail corridor in the vast hallway before fare control that stretches north from 57th St. underneath Eighth Avenue. As of yet, no one has taken out space.

This week, the authority unveiled a comprehensive, if temporary, use of the hallway: It is a 60-foot digital video ads. A release from the MTA explains:

This week, Asics unveiled a stunning new advertising campaign featuring high-definition digital video at Columbus Circle, which serves the A/B/C/D and No.1 lines. Although the video is 60 feet wide and spans the length of 26 glass panels, it appears seamless—as if it’s being projected across one incredibly wide screen.

The campaign is a win-win for the MTA and Asics. For the MTA, the campaign represents yet another way we’re thinking creatively to find new revenue streams that help fund our transit system. For Asics, the massive, coordinated “screen” vastly expands the possibilities of traditional advertising. For instance, at one point the ad asks, “Think you can keep pace with an elite marathoner? Ryan Hall is approaching in …” Numbers then countdown from ten to one, at which point an image of marathoner Ryan Hall runs across the glass, in real speed.

As the MTA proclaims, customers can even try to outrace Ryan Hall. It is “the first time digital video has been done on glass panels and the first time digital video in our system has been done on this scale,” the authority noted. As Times reporter Michael Grynbaum observed on Twitter, it’s all very “Blade Runner-y.”

Yesterday, I rode a shuttle train decked out top to bottom, inside and out, in advertising for Dell computers. Today, video ads follow us through 59th Street as exit the system. As the MTA struggles to make every dollar count, advertising is truly everywhere. The revenue, as Squire Vickers once said, is a balm for hurt minds.

The video boards stretch throughout the Columbus Circle station. (Photo courtesy of NYC Transit)

November 3, 2011 6 comments

Asides MBTA

Dispatches from Boston: Ridership up as cuts loom

by Benjamin Kabak November 2, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 2, 2011

In a story familiar to New Yorkers, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is facing record ridership as it bottom link will soon lead to fare hikes and service cuts. As the Boston Globe reports today, October saw a record 1.35 million rides per average weekday across all MBTA subways, buses and commuter trains as the Massachusetts economy improves and gas prices remain high. Cuts, however, are on the horizon.

As the Globe notes, the MBTA is facing a $161 million operating deficit and is considering service cuts and fare hikes that would go into effect next summer. Amidst high ridership, Boston transit advocates are wary of the move. “I’m real concerned . . . because we could take what is obviously a very important and significant trend and pull the rug out from under it,” Richard A. Dimino, head of a group called A Better City, said. “The T is the workhorse for the Massachusetts economy.”

As with the MTA in New York City, the MBTA is carrying $6 billion in debt, and the deficit could lead lawmakers to eye new taxes for transit subsidies and a fare increase to “stave off significant service reductions.” It is, of course, the same old story: As costs increase and pressure to keep the fares low and affordable mounts, transit agencies slip into debt without state support. The only options are either higher taxes or higher fares. It’s not an ideal choice on either end.

November 2, 2011 6 comments

Asides Buses

The trouble with assessing bus satisfaction

by Benjamin Kabak November 2, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 2, 2011

When the MTA released its subway satisfaction survey last week, it also published a similar one concerning the buses, and I didn’t pay it much attention. As with the subway survey, the bus examination used a similarly flawed scale and still found 70 percent of riders satisfied with local bus service. In one sense, that’s a shockingly high number considering how unreliable and slow local bus service can be.

This week, Allan Rosen at Sheepshead Bites drilled down on both the results of and the process behind the MTA’s bus service, and he too is less than impressed. As bus service varies wildly across routes and boroughs, Rosen, a former bus planner with the MTA, is critical of the sample size, the rankings and the way the survey ignores customer feedback on proper bus routing. His conclusion on the survey: “They first draw their conclusions, then pick and choose the data they want to show to back up those conclusions. In this case the MTA wanted to show that a majority of riders are content with the service they provide.”

That, in a nutshell, is why the bus surveys don’t tell us much. But there’s a bigger issue at work here: The bus surveys targeted only those who ride the bus. If the MTA wanted to find out why people aren’t satisfied with bus service, the agency needs to find people who don’t or no longer ride the bus and ask them why. In such a survey, one would find routing issues, speed (or lack thereof) and an unreliable schedule to be the prime disincentives and a clear reason why bus ridership is on the decline. That’s a survey worth doing.

November 2, 2011 12 comments

Second Avenue Subway

MTA silent but Mica, feds hint at SAS Phase 2

by Benjamin Kabak November 2, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 2, 2011

Over the past few years, as the MTA has showed off progress underneath Second Ave., authority officials have made it a point to downplay anything more than Phase 1 of the subway. Although the environmental study for a full-length Second Ave. Subway came out in 2004, funding for only a northern extension of the BMT line from 57th St. and Broadway to 96th St. and Second Ave. is in place, and the future of the remaining phases is hazy at best.

On the record, MTA officials have never spoken about the possibilities for future phases. When I interviewed Jay Walder last year, he talked about firming up Phase 1 funding commitments and looking for ways to reduce construction costs. On future phases, he hedged.

“If you look at the Second Ave. Subway piece, to their credit, the planners…are achieving a very usable segment of a railway so that when it opens in 2016, you will have something that will connect into the rest of the system.” Walder said to me. “If we don’t stop there, where do we go from here? The intent is that it goes south from there, and funding-available, that is exactly what everyone’s objective will be. We also have pieces of preexisting tunnel north so you may well have the opportunity to pick up both ends of that.”

Yesterday, though, a very faint glimmer of a Phase 2 future emerged when Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) toured the Second Ave. construction site. The federal government has been a very active funding partner for Phase 1. Their investment and pledge of $1.4 billion pushed the MTA to realize a subway line eight decades in the works, and without the federal dollars, the Second Ave. Subway would still just be a dream on paper.

Lately, though, with the feds on an austerity kick despite the need to create jobs, funding for the Second Ave. Subway had come under fire. The House had voted to take away $40 million funding, but after their tour on Tuesday, Mica and Maloney promised to restore those dollars. “The Second Avenue Subway is a great example of what can be done when we invest in our infrastructure, and I thank Chairman Mica for committing to help ensure that the federal government meets its responsibility to fund the subway’s first phase,” Maloney said in a statement.

Mica meanwhile was more expansive in his views. Noting how the Second Ave. Subway is a major infrastructure project with the ability to create a substantial number of jobs, Mica spoke of the future. “For the benefit of other major transportation and infrastructure projects like the Second Avenue Subway, and the stability needed to undertake these kinds of projects around the country, it is essential that Congress complete a six-year transportation bill as soon as possible,” he said.

Speaking with reporters after their tour, Mica stressed how he would lobby for continuous federal funding to maintain the pace of this project, and in those words, I can find that glimmer of hope for the future. If the feds can continue supporting this project, they will put pressure on New York to find the money to go forward. Phase 2 — the northern extension up Second Ave. to the IRT stop at 125th St. and Lexington — would ensure that those working on Phase 1 aren’t unemployed when the construction project ramps down, and the transportation benefits would be tremendous.

I’ve long held out hope for Phase 2 to start as Phase 1 winds down. As Chapter 3 of the FEIS explains, due to preexisting tunnels, the MTA would use cut-and-cover construction methods to build Phase 2. It would likely cost far less than Phase 1 and shouldn’t take nearly as long to finish. In a sense, it is likely to be the easiest segment of the Second Ave. Subway.

Still, I’m getting ahead of myself. The MTA has to make sure Phase 1 is set to finish on time and on budget before it can launch into Phase 2 planning. But I want to believe the project will keep going. I want to believe the MTA won’t cease construction entirely and then ramp it back up to build Phase 2. It’s going to take the perfect alignment of political stars and funding fates, but maybe, just maybe, this little subway 82 years in the making has legs that extend a bit further north than 96th St.

November 2, 2011 89 comments

East Side Access Project

New GCT entrance delayed until 2012

by Benjamin Kabak November 1, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 1, 2011

An entrance into Grand Central along 47th Street was supposed to open in September, but the MTA is now targeting early 2012.

In January of 2010, MTA Capital Construction announced an incremental benefit of East Side Access construction. Although at the time the project was not set to open until 2016, the MTA planned to debut a new entrance this September on 47th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. It is not yet meant to be.

Many frequent Metro-North commuters had noted that the entrance hadn’t opened in September as planned, and I recently reached out to the MTA for an official statement on the delay. While the completion date for East Side Access has been delayed with a report on a new estimated date due out later this year, the entrance could have opened as planned. It was not meant to be, and now the MTA expects to ready this entry point early next year.

“We expect the entrance will open in the first quarter of 2012,” MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said. “Metro-North has shifted to a more sophisticated security system for Grand Central, and the entrance needs to be made compatible with the new system.”

The new entrance, when it opens, will feature an escalator from the street to the 47th St. cross passageway and a staircase from the street to the platform shared by Tracks 11 and 13. Meanwhile, we’re stilling waiting for the bad news from MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu concerning the estimated revenue service date for ESA. My money is on 2018.

November 1, 2011 13 comments

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