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AsidesMTA Politics

State Senate passes transit lockbox, but…

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 23, 2011

The Transit Lockbox bill unanimously passed the State Senate yesterday. Celebrated as a victory for the broad coalition of transit advocates and labor groups who pushed for the measure, the bill bars removal of dedicated transit funds by executive action and requires stringent reporting records for any legislative action that reappropriates transit funding. The key disclosure provisions, as I explored in May, include one requiring “a detailed estimate of the impact of diversion from dedicated mass transit funds will have on the level of mass transit service, maintenance, security and the current capital program.”

Of course, there is a “but” to this news before we can celebrate: The bill has yet to clear the Assembly, and it’s unclear if Sheldon Silver will allow it to come up for a vote. As Streetsblog noted, this measure has the support of 39 Assembly representatives, and James Brennan has been working to get it onto the Ways and Means Committee agenda.

For now, we’ll wait on news from the Assembly, but I’m not holding my breath. The state has long viewed the MTA as its own personal piggy bank, and even as the authority has suffered through its own financial hardships, the state has seen fit to remove $260 million from MTA coffers over the past few years. Protecting dedicated revenue sources remains a top priority for those who support transit, and this measure would be a huge step in the right direction. Can Albany do the right thing?

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Buses

Bronx bus driver assaulted over canine refusal

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 23, 2011

On my way home last night, I found myself on a 2 train at Nevins St. with an empty space next to me. The space was large enough for another person to sit down comfortably, and I was up against the pole trying to make sure any person room to sit down. At Nevins, a woman boarded the train, sat down nearly on top of me without saying excuse and then proceeded to blast music through her headphones at volumes loud enough for me sitting next to her to hear clearly. It was a lesson in inconsiderate behavior.

Earlier this week, something scary happened to a bus driver in the Bronx. It was on an entirely different level than my tale but shows the less-than-considerate behavior people on the buses and subways display. Here’s the story, per the Daily News:

Carrying a Chihuahua, [17-year-old Steangeli] Medina boarded the Bx9 bus on Fordham Road at Cambreleng Ave. in Belmont just before 6 p.m., police said. She became enraged when [bus driver Marlene] Bien-Aime said the pet had to be in a crate to travel. “She said, ‘I’m gonna hit you,'” Bien-Aime said.

The driver responded, “It’s not me, it’s MTA.” Seconds later, the first punch was thrown, said Bien-Aime, who spent Wednesday night at St. Barnabas Hospital. “I was simply doing my job yesterday,” Bien-Aime said.

Medina, a student at Richard R. Green High School in Manhattan, was released on her own recognizance last night after her arraignment on charges of assault, menacing and harassment. The dog was returned to her family.

Yesterday, Bien-Aime and union officials spoke out against the attack. While the MTA knows about the problem of bus driver assaults, they have been slow to better protect drivers. A five-bus pilot that includes a protective shield hasn’t yet moved beyond the initial stages, but the authority expects to equip 100 out of over 6000 soon. It’s not enough, and as the MTA gears up to confront and negotiate with its union, it must make personnel safety a key issue.

Now, as much as I don’t want to draw too many generalizations from a few bad isolated incidents — at least 27 drivers have been attacked this year — it’s hard not to. Medina felt entitled to bring her dog on board a crowded bus. Never mind the rules; never mind the passengers; never mind the drivers. She wanted the rules to apply to others and not her. When she couldn’t get her way, she attacked.

That, of course, is why people in the subway just roll their eyes at those who blast music through headphones, litter and drop food on the floors of subway cars. We don’t want to end up in Bien-Aime’s position with bruises and black eyes and a trip to the emergency room. Manners, it seems, are often missing from the subway system, and the best we can hope is that we’re not on the wrong end of a person with a few screws loose who are at the end of a long day.

Perhaps this is all just a part of the feelings of entitlement that fill our system. Many straphangers never want to wait for trains, always want a seat and will complain no matter how smooth their rides are. They want better and better, and when they don’t get their way, they attack. Bus drivers should be safer and better protected; people should be calmer. But we don’t live in an Eden.

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AsidesWMATA

Discussion: Rethinking a Second System

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 22, 2011

Thirty five years ago, Washington DC’s Metro opened. It’s hard to believe the system is still so new, but basically, in New York terms, the Nation’s Capitol is where our system was in 1939. Of course, by the time 1939 had rolled around, New York had added on part of a Second System and had an ambitious plan for a huge expansion plan. Now it’s DC’s turn.

In an excellent piece for Greater Greater Washington, Matt Johnson highlighted a series of plans under discussion by WMATA planners that could be incorporated into a Metro Second System. These include a circumferential route, spurs off of the blue, yellow and red lines that would better cover Washington DC proper and a variety of better connections into the suburbs. Even if just some of these plans are realized over the next few decades, DC will be far better off for it.

While I’m giving Matt’s piece short shrift, I wanted to pose a discussion question: If New York could start all over again with its Second System plans, where should they build a subway in currently underserved areas? We talked earlier this week about a rail connection to LaGuardia, and the Utica Ave./South 4th St. line remains a great unrealized part of subway history. Would a Triboro RX circumferential line remain a priority? Better expansion past Jamaica in Queens? Crosstown connections from Upper Manhattan into the Bronx? New York hasn’t seen significant subway expansion since the 1930s, and I envy DC the opportunity to grow its system over the coming decades.

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AsidesBuses

Manhattan bus cuts and a downward spiral

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 22, 2011

DNA Info this morning has news of some bus cuts. Six Manhattan lines — the M5, M31, M42, M72, M98 and M104 — will see peak-hour reductions in service starting this September. According to their reports, wait times will increase by 1-2 minutes, and the cuts, driven supposedly by demand and not economics, are going to save the MTA $900,000 a year.

A few other buses in Manhattan will see service increase though. The M9 and M20 will see added buses while the M116 will receive a few more buses during nights and weekends. “We look at demand and ridership and take that into account and schedule headway accordingly,” an authority spokesman said to DNA info.

I’m always a bit skeptical when I hear of bus cuts like this because it’s part of the “death by 1000 cuts” approach I’ve worried about. If the MTA cuts bus service in small increments, eventually, they will make it so that the bus is an impractical and inconvenient mode of surface transit. The longer people wait, the less likely they are to use the bus or take transit. At some point, it because cost-inefficient to operate empty buses, but at some point, cuts lead to a downward spiral. It is a fine line between the two.

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International Subways

From Toronto, a familiar cry on naming rights

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 22, 2011

The naming rights wave has become a plague throughout North America. What started a successful one-off in Philadelphia with AT&T purchasing the rights to SEPTA’s stadium stop has turned into an unobtainable Holy Grail for cash-strapped transit agencies. If they could just convince major companies and big advertisers to pony up dollars for naming rights, all of the financial ills can be cured. Or at least, that’s the thinking.

Over the last year or so, we’ve seen countless cities bring up naming rights deals. Chicago tried to parlay the success of its venture with Apple into a broader attempt to attract corporate sponsors. Austin and New Jersey Transit have mentioned their interest, and Boston too wants to lure in naming partners.

It is, though, just a mirage. Companies don’t draw much power from teaming up with transit agencies that often aren’t very popular in the public mind to stick their names on stations that attract a few thousand folks per day. Still, that won’t stop everyone from trying, and this time, it’s Toronto’s turn.

The story from Canada is frankly hilarious. Toronto has a $774 million budget gap, and it thanks it can close a significant portion of that gap by renaming everything. Never mind that few cities have been able to attract $10 million in naming rights, let alone a few hundred. “As long as it’s called the right name — Spadina McDonald’s, whatever — if it brings in revenue, I honestly don’t believe anyone cares,” City Councillor Doug Ford said.

Toronto officials claim that the TTC is in dire need of both an infusion of cash and some renovations. If private companies want to help out, some will welcome them with open arms. Others, however, seem to recognize the reality of the situation. “There is not big money in them there hills,” Joe Mihevc said. “You need millions of dollars to fix up a subway. It really is not the way we should be naming these public assets.”

The complaints put forward by those in support of the deal in Toronto are the same we’ve heard everywhere. Station names should retain their geographic signifiers as both tourists, locals and everyone in between need to be able to navigate the system. If corporations are willing to work out deals within those parameters involving significant amounts of cash, TTC officials are certainly willing to listen. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The problem, as it always is, boils down to the dollars. Naming rights deals are over. The Nationals, playing in a new baseball stadium in DC, haven’t found a corporate naming partner in four years. The Meadowlands closer to home are still just that. On a more local level, authorities often find it difficult to scrounge up those willing to commit to more ambitious display ads or wrapped subway cars. Naming rights are rarely even on the table.

For all of the talk of naming rights as the next great thing, the largest deals barely deliver revenue. Barclays will append its name to Atlantic/Pacific for a few hundred thousand dollars a year over 20 years. AT&T’s deal with SEPTA runs for a few million over five years. Other than that, politicians and transit planners are wasting their time and shirking their duties. Across the country, officials should try to find true and steady sources of revenue. Naming rights just represent an idea that wasn’t very good in the first place and hasn’t led to any significant amounts of money.

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Brooklyn

Map of the Day: Smith/9th closed until 2012

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 21, 2011

In the grand scheme of New York City’s subway system, the Smith/9th Sts. station along the IND Culver line isn’t a very popular one. Averaging just under 4000 passengers a day in 2010, it was only the 287th most popular stop around. Despite its low ridership, it is both one of the most picaresque and precarious in the city. The highest station in the system with views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline, the viaduct on which it sits has been draped in a protective sheathing for years, and the station has been badly in need of a rehab.

Since late 2007, the MTA had been planning a full station overhaul for the Smith/9th Sts. stop, and for the past few years, they have warned community boards and neighborhood groups of a looming 2011 full station closure. When the service cuts came last year, the authority warned that it would not be able to provide additional shuttle bus service, but when zero hour arrived yesterday and the MTA shuttered the station until next March, people were still upset.

Both Carroll Gardens’ Patch site and NY1 covered frustrated commuters, and the two resulting stories are among my favorites in local outrage. Red Hook residents, who clearly drew the short straw here, will have to take a bus ride either into Park Slope or Downtown Brooklyn to reach their trains, and while these folks complained the most about the state of the station and the safety concerns of the Culver Viaduct, they now are going to complain about the MTA’s fixing up the station as well.

My favorite quotes came from Henry Ramos who spoke to a Patch author. “I am pissed,” he said. “I’m like ‘What am I gonna do now?'” Ramos comes from Williamsburg regularly, and despite a partial platform closure for three months, numerous signs and years of outrage, he wanted even more signs that he probably wouldn’t have read anyway at the station.

Furthermore, he’s bemoaning the fact that the bus isn’t a free shuttle. “If you don’t got a MetroCard for the bus, you gotta walk,” he said. Does that mean he was hopping the turnstile to board the subway? If he has a MetroCard for the bus, he has a free transfer for the ride to Red Hook. But then again, it’s far easier to complain about something long expected than it is to plan ahead.

Once the work on the viaduct that doesn’t require trains to be re-routed is finished, the station will reopen. For those in Red Hook and the southern ends of Carroll Gardens, it’s going to be a long nine months.

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AsidesEast Side Access Project

Schumer: Spend ARC money on East Side Access

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 21, 2011

With the MTA’s capital budget funded only through the end of the year, New York’s Senators down in D.C. are growing worried that key infrastructure (and job-creation) projects are going to run out of dollars when the calendar flips to 2012. To that end, Sen. Chuck Schumer has called upon the U.S. Department of Transportation to shift $2.2 billion in what would have been ARC Tunnel money over to the East Side Access project as a low-interest loan. This would guarantee completion of the project and avoid a slowdown should the state fail to act on the MTA capital budget this fall.

“While we have collectively committed billions of dollars to this project, it’s vital that the MTA has the resources it needs to finish this critical mass transit project that has the potential to alleviate congestion for tens of thousands of commuters who use the Long Island Rail Road every day,” he said in a letter to FRA officials. “Though the USDOT has never approved a financing package of this size under the RRIF program … the USDOT was willing to approve a loan of similar size for New Jersey to fund the ARC tunnel.”

DOT did not comment to Transportation Nation, but the MTA confirmed it had applied for a grant for the project. An authority spokesman said the MTA is “in discussions with the U.S. DOT as part of the application process but we don’t have an estimate on when we’ll hear back.” It would be money well spent.

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BusesQueens

Turning to buses for better LaGuardia access

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 21, 2011

Initial DOT plans for bus access to LaGuardia have focused on five potential routes.

For an airport so close to Midtown Manhattan, LaGuardia often seems very far away. The N and Q trains terminate tantalizingly close to the airport, and the 7 train seems to skirt right on by. But with no direct subway access, one of the nation’s busiest airports remains trapped on the wrong side of a bunch of roads, accessible only by cars, taxis or buses that slowly wind their way through local Queens streets.

The dearth of adequate transit options for the nearly 24 million passengers who pass through the airport isn’t for lack of trying. As I’ve written in the past, many wanted to bring the subway to LaGuardia, but intense NIMBYism and a high pricetag killed the project. Now, we’re left with five local buses, an array of private operators and surface transit. That might change soon.

For as long as the New York City Department of Transportation has focused on its so-called “bus rapid transit” plan, the LaGuardia-Elmhurst corridord has sat atop the priority list. New Yorkers long identified it as an area in need of better access, and city planners know that the area is underserved. Finally, DOT is getting around to studying the corridor.

I learned today — via Cap’n Transit’s post to Twitter — of this DOT web page touting the LaGuardia Airport Access Alternatives Analysis. The snazzy map up on top of this post came from that page in fact. Right now, the website is bare bones. In addition to the map, it features three paragraphs of text:

LaGuardia Airport is the only major airport in the New York metro area without a rapid transit connection, and much of western Queens lacks easy access to the subway for local travel. The idea of providing rapid transit for the airport and the surrounding community has been studied many times over the years, but nothing has ever been implemented.

The LaGuardia Airport corridor was identified as needing shorter term, lower cost transit improvements by area residents as part of the Bus Rapid Transit Phase II study in 2009. In particular, the area generates a high density of transit trips that are a long distance from the subway. The corridor is currently served by the M60,Q33, Q47, Q48 and Q72 bus routes, but service on these routes is often slowed by narrow streets and long dwell times.

With this in mind, DOT requested and received funding from the Federal Transit Administration to conduct a LaGuardia Airport Access Alternatives Analysis. The Alternatives Analysis began in May 2011, and will focus on implementable recommendations. The study will look at both airport trips and trips made by the many residents that live close to the airport. DOT will work closely with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and other City and State agencies throughout the study.

Essentially, two years after residents urged DOT to explore improving access to LaGuardia, the department is finally ready to begin that study. The process is going to be a slow one, and it will likely be at least two years before we see any real transportation improvements. In fact, according to DOT’s schedule, although this month will play host to the first public meeting, the selection of the “Locally Preferred Alternative” won’t happen until next May, and the agency anticipates implementing the initial recommendations sometime in 2013. Obvious transit improvements happen very slowly in New York City.

What then should we anticipate? Although the plans are rough sketches based upon public input from 2009, DOT will have to find a way to overcome the narrow streets and long dwell times. To that end, we’ll see buses focused on wider corridors, and we’ll see Select Bus Service-like improvements implemented. Pre-board fare payment is an obvious one, and while a Manhattan-to-LaGuardia route would be ripe for a truly dedicated lane, the city has not been able to overcome small but loud complaints concerning those types of beneficial travel lanes.

Essentially, earlier studies identified five potential routes, and each should see travel upgrades. The city would like to connect LaGuardia to Willets Point and the 7 in Flushing, the Jackson Heights hub at Roosevelt Avenue, Midtown Manhattan, 125th St. via a stop along the N/Q in Astoria and into the Bronx via Third or Webster Avenues. That’s the easy part. Getting the right improvements implementing on the ground will not, but DOT now has a chance to improve travel to and from a popular urban airport that has never been connected to the subway. It’s an opportunity the city can’t afford to let slip away yet again.

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Subway Advertising

Photo of the Day: Juicy ads at Grand Central

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 20, 2011

Photo by Benjamin Kabak

When: June 15, 2011
Where: The staircase leading up from the Shuttle platform to the entryway to Grand Central Terminal at 42nd St.

I found myself last week walking past the Shuttle platform after entering the subway on 42nd St. and Madison Ave. As I neared the walkway to the IRT complex, I spied these in-staircase advertisements on the steps leading up from the Shuttle platform. As an orange juice connoisseur, I thoroughly enjoyed the subject matter, but what struck me even more so was the presentation of the advertising. I believe this is the first time the MTA has placed a billboard ad inside a staircase.

The ad, on display just a few yards from a train wrapped in a promotional campaign for Lady Gaga’s latest album, works best from a distance. As harried straphangers approach the staircases, the ad comes into view, and Simply Orange is on display for everyone to see. This presentation too is appropriate only for stations that have expansive views and staircases. It wouldn’t work at, say, the 79th St. entrance along the 1 train because those exiting the station never see the staircase from a distance.

As we know, the MTA is trying to eke as many advertising dollars as possible out of the subway system, and the 42nd St. corridor is the ideal location for it. Grand Central is the system’s second busiest subway station, and commuters bound for Midtown office buildings filter through the Shuttle station. This isn’t the first advertisement to adorn the staircase, and we’ll have to see where else these types of ads end up. For now, I’m a fan of the presentation even as advertising becomes more pervasive throughout the system.

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AsidesLIRRMetro-North

State legislature approves railroad platform smoking ban

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 20, 2011

As part of its flurry of late-session legislation last week, the State Senate approved a measure that would ban smoking on all LIRR and Metro-North platforms. Sponsored by Sen. Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr. from Merrick, the bill (S3461C) mimics a move made by both New York City and New Jersey within the past few years. It would ban smoking in outdoor spaces for ticketing, boarding or platforms of train stations operated by the MTA or its subsidiaries, and it has already cleared the state Assembly.

“Thousands of commuters are being exposed to harmful second-hand smoke every time someone lights up a cigarette while waiting for a train,” Senator Fuschillo, a leading anti-smoking representative, said. “Second-hand smoke exposure can lead to a number of different health problems, even among non-smokers. New York needs to expand its own anti-smoking laws to better protect people from second-hand smoke.”

The bill has garnered the support of the American Cancer Society and will now be presented to Gov. Cuomo for his signature. Enforcement, of course, remains another matter entirely.

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