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AsidesSubway Security

After Osama, security ramped up underground

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 4, 2011

The MTA, two weeks ago, revamped their security campaign with the release of a few new ads urging commuters to say something if they see something. It was an almost-prescient move by the transit authority as the city, after Osama Bin Laden’s death on Sunday, ramped up security across the board. As the Daily News noted briefly earlier this week, the subways are one area that will see increased police patrols. “We’re a little more visible today,” an MTA police officer said. “We have dogs out, guys with machine guns. They’re always here but we have more out. This is a major target.”

With the increased security comes more vigilance from the city’s straphangers as well. As ABC News reported, the added police presence will continue for some time as U.S. officials attempt to discern the fallout from Bin Laden’s death. So far, the city has noticed an increase in the number of people seeing something and saying something as well. On Monday, they fielded 60 calls — not all from the subways — and that total represents a figure higher than usual. Underground, the transit system remains porous, and striking the right balance between fear and vigilance remains necessary.

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View from Underground

‘The train’s the thing wherein to catch a five-star dinner’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 4, 2011

Riding the subway on a daily basis can often seem mundane. We board the same trains; we see the same people; we wait in the same spot on the same platform at the same time every morning. By and large, the subways fail to surprise, and when they do, the surprises generally come in the form of unwelcome delays or trains cars that are more crowded than usual. That’s just the way of things in the world of underground commuting.

Now and then, though, intrepid — or foolhardy — New Yorkers try to shake us from our routine. We hear about guerrilla art projects in abandoned stations or spot the Rebel Alliance on the 6 train. Every year, thousands of people ride the subways with no pants on. Some people find the performance art stunts entertaining; others are annoyed by them. Still, they continue.

In fact, recently, a Rockaway-bound L train played host to a clandestine dining experience while a troupe of Shakespeare actors have taken to performing in the subway. Melena Ryzik of The Times found herself eating on the L this past Sunday. She reports of boarding an empty train at 8th Avenue and finding it taken over by hungry and in-the-know straphangers. She writes:

Within moments, a car of the waiting train was transformed into a traveling bistro, complete with tables, linens, fine silverware and a bow-tied maître d’hôtel. “Is this your first time dining on the second car of the L train?” he asked, as guests filed in.

They had been lured by the promise of a clandestine dining experience. (“Please go to the North East Corner of 8th Ave and 14th St,” read the instructions e-mailed early that morning. “There will be a tall slender woman there with jet black hair who is holding an umbrella. Please just go up and introduce yourself. Her name is Michele and she is quite lovely, but no matter how hard you press she won’t tell you about the adventure you are going on.”)

The event was the work of several supper clubs, and the menu they devised was luxurious: caviar, foie gras and filet mignon, and for dessert, a pyramid of chocolate panna cotta, dusted with gold leaf. All of it was accessible with a MetroCard swipe (Michele handed out single-ride passes) and orchestrated with clockwork precision. The six-course extravaganza took only a half-hour.

It wasn’t rush hour, so seating was easy. The tables (lap-width black planks, with holes cut to fit water glasses) were tied to the subway railings with twine. Tucking in behind them felt something like being buckled into a roller coaster. At 1:30 p.m., a few minutes ahead of schedule, the train lurched off.

As the train proceeded east, passengers found themselves thrust into a meal while chefs from various restaurants boarded the L to serve their course. One rider had thoughts echoed by many. “I had this fantastic lunch,” Paul Smith, a CUNY professor said to The Times, “very exquisite. And then I thought, am I going to get arrested?”

The MTA did not seem to find the event all that charming though. “A dinner party on the L train?” Spokesman Charles Seaton said. “No. Subway trains are for riding, not for holding parties.”

If dinner on the trains isn’t your thing — after all, not everyone believes the subways are for dining — how about some Shakespeare instead? Jo Piazza of The Wall Street Journal met with two actors from Brooklyn who reenact Shakespeare on the subway. Paul Marino, 29 years old, and Fred Jones, 26, spend 20 hours a week, primarily on the N, R, J, M or Z trains, acting out scenes from “Macbeth,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet,” among others.

So far the two, who are featured in the video above, have found audiences receptive, but drunk riders will harass them. The pair, who make a few bucks per performance, have even managed to finagle some dates with the women in their crowds. Perhaps all the world is truly a stage after all.

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Second Avenue Subway

Photo of the Day: At 63rd St., tearing down a wall

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 3, 2011

At 63rd Street, contractors have built a blue construction wall as they ready the station for Second Avenue Subway Service. (Photo via Ben Heckscher at The Launch Box)

Many straphangers who frequent the F train into and out of Queens have no idea that the part of the 63rd St. station they see is only half of it. Behind the ugly, bright orange wall is an unused and unfinished platform that sometimes serves as a lay-up for out-of-service trains. The tracks connect to the 57th St. station along the BMT Broadway line and will one day serve as a stop on the Second Ave. Subway.

Some preparatory work on the station has already begun, and contractors are starting to tear down the false wall between the Queens Boulevard tracks and the eventual Second Ave. Subway side. Ben Heckscher from The Launch Box took some photos of station recently. Already, contractors are working on street-level infrastructure while beginning the arduous process of remodeling a 20-year-old station that looks architecturally dated already. This part of the Second Ave. Subway project is supposed to wrap in late 2014. For a glimpse of the unused platform as it exists today, browse on over to this NYCSubway.org page.

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Taxis

Nissan’s least popular model to be Taxi of Tomorrow

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 3, 2011

The Nissan NV200 is reported to be the Taxi of Tomorrow.

The Nissan NV200, the least popular model of the three finalists, will be the city’s Taxi of Tomorrow, Mayor Bloomberg is set to announce today. After a lengthy RFP process and a public comment period, the city chose to ignore the popular vote to go with a car that seems to be practical, cheap and ugly to replace the Crown Victoria. On the bright side, the Nissan NV200, with a fuel economy of around 35 miles per gallon and the option to go electric, is far more fuel efficient than the current fleet, but the design is lacking in both creativity and accessibility.

The city’s decision to award Nissan with an exclusive ten-year deal to provide the city with bulky, ugly taxi vans that will enter service in 2014 is not without controversy. In terms of popular support, Nissan’s vehicle not only finished third out of three among voters but did so by a significantly large margin. Only 236 out of more than 19,000 voters supported the design. Meanwhile, city officials are already alleging a conflict of interest in the decision.

This news, though, comes as little surprise as in recent days it seemed clear that the city was leaning toward an established manufacturer of taxis for this contract. As The Times reported yesterday, the city had rejected the Turkey-based Karsan’s design, complete with see-through moon roof, over viability concerns. Karsan has yet to make a car for an American market, and despite promises of a factory in Brooklyn, the company reportedly would likely not be able to meet the demands of the Taxi of Tomorrow program.

Meanwhile, the Nissan car, in use in Asia and Europe, is far from perfect. From a design perspective, it’s bulky and ugly, and it’s tough to say this is an “iconic design that will identify the new taxi with New York City,” as the original project guideline requested. It takes up a lot of space on the road — not necessarily a bad thing as its sliding doors should eliminate potential “doorings” in accidents with cyclists. But the car is not ADA-compliant, and advocates for disabled riders are not happy with it. In fact, because this is a comprehensive city-based scheme, it could be vulnerable to a legal challenge.

Back in November, Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke guardedly about the competition. “Each is promising, but none is perfect,” he said. “We are not obliged to go with anything if it does not meet our needs.” It appears as though the city has decided to go forward with a vehicle, albeit one I find uninspiring, boring and flawed. For a project that’s supposed to be forward-looking, the design is decidedly and rather bulky. The taxi fleet deserves better.

* * *

Update (4:10 p.m.): Reuters has a story up with the official announcement. Nothing too exciting, but the Mayor spoke highly of Nissan’s offerings. “It’s going to be the safest, most comfortable, and most convenient cab the City has ever had,” he said. “We started this process to leverage our taxi industry’s purchasing power to get the highest quality taxi. The new taxis will be custom-designed to meet the specific demands of carrying 600,000 passengers a day.”

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Capital Program 2010-2014

New placards promote MTA improvements

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 3, 2011

When the MTA introduced its new “Improving, Non-Stop” house ad campaign earlier this year, they did so, as I wrote at the time, with an eye toward Albany. The authority knew it had a an unfunded capital program with a $10-$13 billion gap, and officials knew they had to convince those who control the purse strings that the MTA is both moving forward and badly in need of that money. The PR campaign is going haltingly.

On the one hand, straphangers have taken to vandalizing the posters. They aren’t going unnoticed, but the message has been met with skepticism. After all, no matter how many improvements the MTA makes, people always want more. They want more frequent trains, better technology, cleaner stations, the works. On the other hand, the MTA still needs its money.

And so, the authority is upping the message. New placards have gone up in trains throughout the system with the tagline “What’s New?” They promote the real-time bus-tracking pilot along the B63 in Brooklyn, the cashless tolling system on the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Select Bus Service routes and consolidated agency phone numbers, to name but a few. Of course, riders are taking just as kindly to the new campaign as they did the old.

As Michael Grynbaum wrote last week, a few intrepid editors have determined that the answer to “What’s new?” is higher fares. He writes of the disconnect between the message, the medium and those reading it:

The graffiti points to the vast public relations difficulties of an agency whose very nature — operating a system that virtually every New Yorker depends on — makes it a lightning rod for all manner of criticism, deserved and not.

The agency, increasingly wary of politicians’ criticism and less than flattering news coverage, has been trying a direct-marketing approach in making riders aware of the work it is doing to improve the transportation experience.

The new slate of promotional posters, to be displayed in subways, buses and commuter rails and on some station walls, is a complement to the agency’s “Improving, Nonstop” campaign, started earlier this year. The idea was to remove outdated slogans — “Going Your Way” is now gone — and create a more streamlined, simpler aesthetic for the agency to inform its clientele.

“There was a feeling that the M.T.A. hadn’t been as effective as we could be in communicating things that are going on to our customers,” said Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the transportation authority. “This is a way of trying to improve that.”

Some of this conflict stems from years of underinvestment. Because the MTA had a huge infrastructure deficit in the 1980s, it couldn’t keep up with the technological advances of the day. Thus, when the money started to flow, the capital investments were made primarily to save a decrepit system. Now that the system is halfway between decrepit and Good Repair, riders want more.

Meanwhile, Albany isn’t too willing to give more. The city and state have reduced their fiscal commitments to the MTA over the past 15 years, and with money tight across the state, that trend isn’t stopping any time soon. But without a capital plan and funding, the transit system will slide. Hopefully, the answer to “What’s New?” will soon be “a fully funded five-year capital plan.” We can’t afford to go forward without one.

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AsidesQueens

Queens commuters growing impatient over Court Sq. transfer

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 2, 2011

The new transfer between the E, M, G and 7 trains at Court Square was supposed to open in February. In March, the MTA renamed the 23rd St.-Ely Ave. station in anticipation of an April opening. Now, as May 2 is upon us, the transfer remains completed but closed as Citi Corp., the owner of the building through which the new transfer runs, and the MTA have failed to come to terms on a Memorandum of Understanding that would dictate the use of the space. It is a bureaucratic mess.

In the Queens Chronicle this week, Elizabeth Daly delves into the conflict over the transfer. She speaks with antsy commuters who have waited years for an enclosed escalator transfer and rehashes the vague details surrounding the conflict between Citi and the MTA. While the authority claims the entrance will open this spring, local politicians are annoyed. “It’s already a year late,” State Sen. Michael Gianaris said. “We shouldn’t let bureaucratic inertia slow down infrastructure improvement.”

Ultimately, this is a tale of the conflict between the MTA’s work and private interests at its finest. Citi is apparently hesitant to agree to certain obligations over entrance maintenance to which the MTA asks all of its real estate developers to adhere. One day, a transfer will open. One day.

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ARC Tunnel

FTA: NJ owes ARC millions and interest

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 2, 2011

A schematic of the ARC Tunnel's Manhattan terminal. (Click to enlarge)

In a 52-page decision released on Friday, the Federal Transit Administration has determined that New Jersey must repay all of the $271 million the state had spent on the ARC Tunnel project before Gov. Chris Christie canceled the project this fall. Furthermore, if the state fails to pay the money soon, the FTA will begin to charge interest on amounts due at a steep rate. To fight this ruling, Gov. Christie, who has already spent close to $1 million on legal fees, could appeal the ruling in federal court.

Both The Record and The Times reported on the ruling this past weekend, and I’ve embedded the document along with a letter from Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, below. The ruling explores why New Jersey is legally obligated to return the funds and is appealable. The federal courts would have jurisdiction over the matter. Essentially, though, this move raises the stakes in the fight over what was to be the country’s largest public works project.

Patrick McGeehan from The Times had more:

In a letter to New Jersey’s senators and representatives in Congress, Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, warned that his department had “many tools under the Debt Collection Act to recoup the lost federal taxpayer funds, including withholding future state funding from a wide variety of sources.” But “in consideration of the current economic challenges burdening New Jersey,” Mr. LaHood added, he hoped to “develop a workable payment schedule” and avoid having to resort to those collection methods.

Mr. LaHood should not expect to find a check in the mail any time soon. Mr. Christie, who was in Massachusetts on Friday to speak at Harvard University, declared in January that “we are not paying the money back.” Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Mr. Christie, said the governor’s staff would “review the decision before determining next steps moving forward.” One option is to sue the department to try to stop it from seeking to collect, but Mr. Roberts would not say if a lawsuit was being considered.

In the meantime, interest on the debt will pile up quickly. The federal government currently charges interest at a rate of 1 percent a year, which in this case amounts to more than $50,000 a week.

According to LaHood’s letter to Senator Frank Lautenberg, the crux of the matter concerns Christie’s representations to the FTA in previous years. Despite rising cost estimates in early 2010, the Governor pledged full support for the ARC Tunnel in meetings with LaHood in February, March and April of last year. Six months later, the project was off, and LaHood could not convince Christie to change his mind, and LaHood took a hard line against Christie in the letter.

“Any notion that the potential for cost growth constituted new and emergent information when the Governor made his decision is simply not accurate,” he wrote.

For now, the FTA is still willing to work with New Jersey to make the repayment process as painless as possible, but Washington’s patience is limited. “In consideration of the current economic challenges burdening New Jersey and all other states, I am not pursuing these collection methods at this time in the hope that we and the state of New Jersey can develop a workable payment schedule,” the secretary said.

Despite taking a hard line, LaHood bemoaned the fate of the ARC Tunnel, and right now, its legacy is one of a legal fight that isn’t over yet. “The purpose of my efforts,” LaHood said of his meetings this past fall, “was to avoid the very circumstances in which we now find ourselves: no jobs, no congestion relief, and an enduring debt whereby New Jersey must return $271 million to the Nation’s taxpayers.”

After the jump, read the letter and FTA decision.

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Service Advisories

A site note and the weekend service advisories

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 30, 2011

Quick site note: Second Ave. Sagas will be offline for a little while early Saturday morning as I upgrade the server. We should be back online by 3 a.m.

With that said, here are this weekend’s service advisories. These are subject to change without notice. Listen to on-board announcements and pay attention to the signs in your local station. Subway Weekender has the map.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 29 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, free shuttle buses replace 2 trains between 241st Street and East 180th Street due to work on the East 180th Signal Modernization project.


From 1 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, 4 trains skip Fulton Street in both directions due to platform edge, mechanical and electrical work at the Fulton Street Transit Center. Customers may take the 2, 3, A, C or J shuttle instead. Note: The J shuttle operates between Chambers Street/Brooklyn Bridge and Fulton Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, 4 trains run local between 125th Street and Brooklyn Bridge in both directions due to track work south of Grand Central-42nd Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, there are no 5 trains between East 180th Street and 149th Street-Grand Concourse due to work on the East 180th Signal Modernization project. Customers should take to 2 instead. Note: During this time, shuttle trains run every 30 minutes between Dyre Avenue and East 180th Street.


From 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday, April 30 and from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Sunday May 1, 5 trains skip Fulton Street in both directions due to work at the Fulton Street Transit Center and operate every 20 minutes between 149th Street-Grand Concourse the Bowling Green due to work on the East 180th Street Signal Modernization project. Note: J shuttle trains run between Chambers Street/Brooklyn Bridge and Fulton Street. 5 trains run local between 125th Street and Brooklyn Bridge in both directions.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, Bronx-bound 6 trains skip Whitlock Avenue and Morrison Avenue-Soundview due to station rehabilitation work at Elder and St. Lawrence Avenues.


At all times until October 2011, 6 trains skip Elder Avenue and St. Lawrence Avenue in both directions due to station rehabilitation. Customers may use the Bx4, Bx4A and Bx27 buses to transfer to nearby stations. (Overnight note: Free shuttle buses will operate between the Parkchester (6) and the Simpson Street (2) stations.


From 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, April 30, Manhattan-bound 7 trains skip 111th, 103rd, 90th and 82nd Streets due to prep work for structure painting at 111th Street.

, (Rockaway Park Shuttle)
From 10:30 p.m. Friday, April 29 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, free shuttle buses replace A trains between Beach 90th Street and Far Rockaway due to station rehab work at Beach 36th and Beach 60th Streets. A trains replace the S shuttle between Broad Channel and Rockaway Park. Note: At all times until early summer, Manhattan-bound A platforms at Beach 36th and Beach 60th Streets are closed for station rehabilitation.


During the overnight hours, from 11 p.m. Friday, April 29 to 6 a.m. Saturday, April 30, from 11 p.m. Saturday, April 30 to 7 a.m. Sunday, May 1, and from 11 p.m. Sunday May 1 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, uptown A trains skip 72nd, 81st, 86th, 96th, 103rd, 110th, and 116th Streets due to prep work for track work north of 110th Street. Customers should take the A to 125th Street and transfer to a downtown A.


During the early morning hours, from 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1, and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, downtown A trains skip 50th, 23rd, and Spring Streets due to track work north of Canal Street.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1, downtown C trains skip 50th, 23rd, and Spring Streets due to track work north of Canal Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, Bronx-bound D trains run on the N line from Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue to 36th Street due to station rehab and structural repair work at stations between 71st Street and Bay 50th and ADA work at Bay Parkway. There are no Bronx-bound D trains at Bay 50th, 25th Avenue, Bay Parkway, 20th Avenue, 18th Avenue, 79th Street, 71st Street, 55th Street, 50th Street, Ft. Hamilton Parkway or 9th Avenue stations.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, Bronx-bound D trains run local from West 4th Street to 34th Street in Manhattan due to platform edge rehabilitation at 34th Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, downtown E trains skip 23rd Street and Spring Street due to track work north of Canal Street.


During the overnight hours from 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 29 to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, April 30, from 11:30 p.m. Saturday, April 30 to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, May 1 and from 11:30 p.m. Sunday, May 1 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, Manhattan-bound E trains skip 65th Street, Northern Blvd., 46th Street, Steinway Street and 36th Street due to track work north of 36th Street.


From 3:30 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 10 p.m. Sunday, May 1, there are no J trains between Crescent Street and Jamaica Center due to elevated structure rehabilitation between Cypress Hills and 130th Street, track panel installation at Woodhaven Blvd. and 111th Street and switch rehabilitation north of 121st Street. Free shuttle buses operate between the Crescent Street and 121st Street on the J line then connect to the Jamaica-Van Wyck E station. Customers should take the E train for service between Jamaica-Van Wyck and Sutphin Blvd/Archer Avenue or Jamaica Center. Note: From 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, May 1, there is no elevator or escalator service at the Sutphin Blvd/Archer Avenue station due to routine maintenance by Port Authority on the electrical panels that control both the elevators and escalators.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 30 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, Brooklyn-bound N trains operate on the D line from 36th Street to Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue due to track panel installation along the route. There is no Brooklyn-bound N service at 8th Avenue, Ft. Hamilton Pkwy, 18th Avenue, 20th Avenue, Bay Pkwy, Kings Highway, Avenue U or 86th Street stations.


During the early morning hours from 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, Brooklyn-bound N trains operate over the Manhattan Bridge from Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue due to platform tile installation at Cortlandt Street. There is no Brooklyn-bound N service at City Hall, Rector Street, Whitehall Street, Court Street or Jay Street-MetroTech. Customers may use the 4 at nearby stations or the F at Jay Street-MetroTech.


From 5 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1, Brooklyn-bound R trains skip 65th Street, Northern Blvd., 46th Street, Steinway Street and 36th Street due to track work north of 36th Street in Queens.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, April 30 and Sunday, May 1, Brooklyn-bound R trains operate over the Manhattan Bridge from Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue due to platform tile installation at Cortlandt Street. There are no Brooklyn-bound trains at City Hall, Rector Street, Whitehall Street, Court Street or Jay Street-MetroTech. Customers should use the 4 at nearby stations or the F at Jay Street-MetroTech.


From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday, May 1, uptown R trains skip Whitehall Street due to the Five Boro Bike Tour. Customers should use the Rector Street station instead.

(Rockaway Park Shuttle)
From 11 p.m. Friday April 29 to 5 a.m. Monday, May 2, A trains replace the S Rockaway Park Shuttle between Broad Channel and Rockaway Park due to station rehabs at Beach 36th and Beach 60th Streets.

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MTA Absurdity

Video of the Day: Subway stations falling down

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 29, 2011

New York’s subway stations are falling down. A few days ago, Patch’s Prospect Heights site reported on a crumbling ceiling at the Eastern Parkway subway stop that sent two children to the hospital with scrapes and cuts. For the MTA and its riders, this is but another sign of the fact that 100-year-old systems require significant infrastructure investments, and it’s hardly a unique happening.

In response to this incident and viewer comments, WPIX 11’s local agitator Greg Mocker hit the streets to find the system’s worst looking subway stations. He didn’t have to look too far, and in the segment below — which unfortunately contains some ill-informed MTA bashing from local politicians who refuse to fund these badly-needed infrastructure upgrades — he goes underground. The State of Good Repair remains elusive indeed.

 

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ARC TunnelAsides

In Xanadu did Gov. Christie a state-supported pleasure-dome decree

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 29, 2011

When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie killed the ARC Tunnel project, he did so in the name of fiscal responsibility. Cost overruns for the project, based on FTA estimates, could have ranged from $1-$5 billion, and while the FTA noted that better project oversight would have kept those costs within a reasonable range, Christie, to gain a name for himself, torpedoed a project that would have brought $4 billion in federal money to the state and provided for 44,000 jobs as well as faster rides for nearly every city-bound Jersey commuter. It was, needless to say, a big blow to the area’s transit progress.

Yesterday, we learned just how far the limits of Christie’s fiscal “responsibility” stretch. With a Super Bowl on tap for the Meadowlands in 2014 and an ugly hulk of colorful panels known as Xanadu sitting on the turnpike, unfinished and broke, Christie’s administration has promised $400 million in subsidies and tax breaks to Triple Five, the Mall of America owners, if they finish the project. The group will have to spend up to $2 billion to do so, will give the ugly structure a new outside and will call it American Dream@Meadowlands.

Transit advocates in New Jersey are feeling the sting. As TM Brown at Radials notes, Christie has made what is essentially a political decision to fund private development over a public works project. While the ARC Tunnel commitment could have been more substantial, it also promised more federal dollars and greater economic benefits for the state. “It seems,” he writes, “almost inappropriate in a time of forced and severe austerity for millions of Americans that Gov. Christie has decided to fund what amounts to a temple to profound consumption and, just a year before, defunded a project that would have improved life and finances for millions. Though if people are happy with the defunding of the ARC tunnel, they can always go skiing in Xanadu.”

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