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MTA institutes Plan 4 snow response; weekend work canceled

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

After its response to late December’s surprise blizzard drew criticism, the MTA has already initiated its Plan 4 snow response. The subways will follow the MTA’s cold weather service patterns with B train service ending at around 8 p.m. and the M to Forest Hills at 11 p.m. With five or six inches of snow on the way, Transit will be prepared for the snow this time around. “We want to make sure we want to do this one right,” Tom Prendergast, head of New York City Transit, said this afternoon.

To prepare for the snow, which they expect to begin in earnest at around 4 a.m., the MTA will store unused trains underground tonight. Thus, express service may not run on many lines. Furthermore, the MTA has readied its fleet of de-icers, track sweepers and snow throwers, and workers will be retained for 12-hour shifts. The authority has also reestablished a central command center that will help the agency keep a close eye on areas in the field where snow hinders transit operations. “That lack of info hurt us and inhibited us…from responding to high winds and drifting snow,” Prendergast said of last month’s blizzard.

Meanwhile, as buses will be chained this evening, the authority has canceled all weekend work as well. This includes a one-week postponement of the Culver Viaduct rehab. With fewer inches of snow in the forecast, Transit is out to prove that it learned something from last week’s lesson. They say they’re prepared for a winter storm, and tonight should bring them the season’s next test.

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AsidesPublic Transit Policy

House now misappropriate transit funding too

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

Just in case you worried that New York is alone when it comes to legislatures stealing money that should be dedicated to transit, think again. As Transportation Nation dismayingly reports today, the 112th Congress has adopted rules for the House that allow for transportation funds to be used for non-transportation purposes. A rule shielding those funds from such a misappropriation had been in place since 1998, and it seems clear that the G.O.P.-led House will try to cut transit and infrastructure spending over the next two years.

Local politicians and transit agencies aren’t happy. Earlier this week, Jay Walder penned a letter to Congressman Anthony Weiner. In it, he urged the New York State Democrat to speak out against this parliamentary maneuvering. “The proposed revision,” the MTA CEO and Chair said, “would allow highway user fees to be applied to other types of investments, reducing Congress’ ability to provide predictable levels of funding for transportation projects.” A significant portion of the MTA’s capital money comes from the federal government, and at a time when the agency must fill a $10 billion gap in its current five-year spending plan, this move could not come at a worse time.

Transit advocates expert this move to reduce federal infrastructure spending by approximately $7-$8 billion. For more on the ramifications of this decision, check out coverage on The Transport Politic.

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AsidesBrooklyn

For Brooklyn F riders, all’s well that ends a week later

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

After an intense debate over some Brooklynites’ shock at the looming closure of stations along the F line, the weather has intervened to give the Culver Viaduct rehab a week-long reprieve. As WNYC’s Jim O’Grady reported late yesterday, Transit has decided to postpone the work by a week due to the threat of up to six inches of snow this weekend. Thus, the work on the Culver Viaduct that requires Manhattan-bound trains to bypass Forth Hamilton Parkway, 15th St. and Smith-9th Sts. won’t commence until January 17, and neighbors irate over the late notice have another week to plan.

Meanwhile, O’Grady quizzed Transit officials on the decision to wait until less than a week before work was to begin to hang up signs announcing the platform closures. “We have found that if you put it up too early, people lose sight of it,” agency spokesman Charles Seaton said. “It’s better to keep it fresh in people’s minds.” Seaton did say that signs will go up this weekend and that the authority will make “public announcements in the system.”

Yet, I still believe warnings should have gone up in late December. The Viaduct rehab, talked about since 2007, will inconvenience a lot of F and G train riders throughout 2011. Either way, after the back-and-forth amongst commenters in my earlier post, on FiPS yesterday and on Gothamist, I had to laugh when this seven-day postponement was announced last night.

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Subway Security

In D.C., a different debate over bag searches

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

Random bag searches have been the way of life underground since 2005. (Photo by flickr user Runs With Scissors)

For New Yorkers, random subway bag searches have been a way of life for six years. Now and then, straphangers see a trio of NYPD officers set up shop at an entrance, usually at rush hour when most people would rather just got home. Right now, ten years after 9/11 and what seems like a lifetime since Transit and the police started its own bag searches, Washington’s WMATA is launching its own bag searches, and the riders are not happy.

In many regards, the stories coming out of the District of Columbia mirror those from New York in 2005, but Metro passengers in DC are unhappier than straphangers here ever were. Dr. Gridlock of The Washington Post offers up his take on the bag searches in DC. While New Yorkers hate the MTA, folks in DC loathe the WMATA and have not take kindly to the latest intrusion into their privacy. He criticizes the WMATA board for falling to explore this change in policy, and the rhetoric is strong. It is, he says, “one more indignity” customers who have “taken so much from the transit authority” must withstand.

The WMATA officials of course defended the policy in December on grounds that, hey, New York is doing it. “While there is no specific or credible threat to the system at this time, this inspection program is part of our practice of varying our security posture and adds another type of visible protection on our system,” Richard Sarles, Metro’s interim GM, said.

“[Police Chief Michael] Taborn has ensured that this program will minimize inconvenience to riders. The program is based on similar successful law enforcement programs used routinely on transit systems in the New York, New Jersey and Boston areas. Inspections will be brief and are typically non-intrusive, as police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using ionization technology, as well as K-9 units trained to detect explosive material. Carry on items will generally not be opened and physically inspected, unless the equipment indicates a need for further inspection.”

As with in New York, those who refuse inspection are not permitted entrance into the system, and the riders absolutely hate it. “We’re not Israel, nor should we be. The searches are ineffective,” one said at a recent public forum.

These DC responses remind me of a time nearly six years ago when the MTA implemented a similar procedure. In the wake of the July train bombings in Europe in 2005, the MTA and other area transit authorities began random bag inspections throughout the region. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly felt that “time was right” to begin this security initiative, and taking to the airwaves, Mayor Bloomberg tried to assuage public fears of police misconduct. “I hope that we have established the right balance here, providing the kind of security we need while not being too intrusive and not violating their rights,” he said. “The way we’ve done this is: You can walk away if you don’t want your bag searched; you just can’t get on the subway. So we do it outside the turnstile. And there’s no profiling.”

Calling protecting our subways a “vital national interest,” The Times endorsed the practice, and after the first week, most watching the program cited “an absence of drama.” Still, civil liberties groups were not too happy with the searches, and the NYCLU filed suit in November.

The following year, a three-judge panel in the Second Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the searches. “In light of the thwarted plots to bomb New York City’s subway system, its continued desirability as a target, and the recent bombings of public transportation systems in Madrid, Moscow and London, the risk to public safety is substantial and real,” determined the judges.

Today, the bag searches have become background noise in the subways. At first, cops were inspecting every fifth passenger to enter the system, but these days, it appears far more random than that. I constantly see the police set up shop at West 4th St., but even with a heavy backpack in tow, I’ve never once had to stop for a bag search. Despite Bloomberg’s promises in 2005, I can’t help but think that I don’t look the part enough for the NYPD.

As D.C. grapples with a similar project — a legal challenge seems both brewing and bound to fail — maybe it’s time to reevaluate our city’s own program. Has it made the subways safer? Does it still? The MTA still faces fears of photography at depots where security staffing had to be reduced, and anti-terrorist experts admit that our rail systems remain insecure. There’s no good one way to keep terrorists at bay, and a wide array of local responses seem to be warranted to make sure we’re as safe as possible.

We seem to be stuck with the bag search hand we’ve been dealt. It — and the threat of terrorism — isn’t going away any time soon, and DC’s Metro riders will soon, for better or worse, learn the same lesson. While New Yorkers didn’t put up much of a fight or offer public outcry, though, Washingtonians won’t take their bag searches lying down.

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Abandoned Stations

Video of the Day: Undercity explorations

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 5, 2011

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

The last few months have been kind to underground explorers who poke around in areas off limits to the city’s law-abiding citizens. After the Underbelly Project drew headlines and arrests, urban exploration has become the next great Internet fetish.

This past week, The Times and NPR profiled Steve Duncan of Undercity who, along with Andrew Wonder and Erling Kagge, took some reporters to a few of the city’s more hard-to-reach spots. Among those were, of course, some areas of the subway. In the video above, the explorers go underground with a camera, and the 30-minute clip is stunning. The first part has them walking the tracks late at night to reach the old abandoned City Hall stop, and the video footage will leave your jaw on the floor.

Of course, what the three explorers and the reporters did is illegal. So do not try that on your end. Cops will be watching these tunnels. For more, check out the articles in The Times and on NPR.org.

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MTA Economics

Nassau County on the hook for more MTA funds

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 5, 2011

As Nassau County and the MTA drag out their dispute over funding for Long Island Bus, a state court decided this week that the Long Island count must pay the MTA $20 million for a loan the county took out 15 years ago. Newsday has the details on this latest bit of financial chicanery:

Already struggling to meet its financial obligations to the MTA, Nassau County may have to pay the transit agency an additional $20 million following a state court’s decision in a lawsuit stemming from a financial deal made between the two sides 15 years ago.

According to the suit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority lent “the cash-strapped county” $51 million in 1996 in a “2-for-1” agreement in which Nassau agreed to pay back twice that sum in funds for MTA capital projects in Nassau.

Nassau issued bonds to raise the full $102 million and made good on $89 million of the capital funding it had committed to the MTA. But, according to the suit, in 2001 the county filed a lawsuit looking to get out of the agreement, arguing that the MTA had overstepped its authority in making the deal.

The court is now requiring the county to fork over $13.6 million to cover the difference in payments as well as another $7.3 million in interest, legal fees and other capital improvements. County officials, of course, are none too pleased. “We are very disappointed in the ruling and have directed staff to file a notice of appeal,” Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said.

The MTA, meanwhile, with support from Newsday’s editorial staff, is starting to take an agressive approach toward Nassau County’s dismissive attitude toward its MTA funding obligations. “This ruling makes it clear that Nassau County’s obligations to the MTA are not optional and shouldn’t be treated that way,” agency spokesman Jeremy Soffin said. If only the authority would say the same to Albany.

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ARC Tunnel

At Penn Station, the ghost of ARC lives on

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 5, 2011

Penn Station simply cannot handle an increase in train capacity.

It’s been over two months since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pulled the plug on the ARC Tunnel project, and the fallout from his decision is still raining down upon the region. While the 7 line extension to Secaucus made headlines in mid-November, all has been quite on the cross-Hudson front. Still, the problems ARC was designed to address and the problems that plagued the ARC project live on.

Two stories — one grander than the other — kept the ARC tunnel in the news this week. First, The Post’s editorial board used the MTA Inspector General’s report on the MTA’s construction cost overruns as proof that canceling ARC was the right idea. Their logic is spurious at best.

“You can’t blame New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he feels some satisfaction over news out of the MTA,” Alexander Hamilton’s former paper said. “A new report by Inspector General Barry Kluger found that the transit agency’s major development projects — the Second Avenue subway, the LIRR link and the Fulton Transit Center — are five years late and $2 billion over budget. But they’re all too far along for MTA Chairman Jay Walder to kill them. Which is precisely what Christie did to the Hudson River commuter tunnel, before it slipped into the overrun abyss.”

The Post claims that the problems plaguing the MTA — “lack of oversight and bureaucratic infighting” — are the same as those that would have descended on ARC, and because of those concerns, Christie was right to cancel the project. To me, it would have made far more sense for Christie to address those two concerns and figure out a way to bring the project under budget before killing it. He chose not to tackle those problems, and the way he made his decision should not be applauded.

Meanwhile, the problems ARC was designed to address are alive and kicking. Penn Station has not turned into a panacea of through trains, and the crowded rail hub is facing capacity concerns. As part of an ongoing series detailing concerns about our region’s aging transportation infrastructure, Andrew Grossman of the Wall Street Journal went in depth into the Penn Station problems. He writes:

NJ Transit, LIRR and Amtrak must get 170 trains loaded on 21 platforms in four hours, moving more than 120,000 commuters and long-haul travelers out of Manhattan. It is the nation’s busiest station. If all goes according to plan, a train opens its doors on a platform every 60 to 90 seconds, picking up or dropping off about 900 passengers—the equivalent of two full Boeing 747s.

In 2010, 6% of peak-period NJ Transit trains were late through November, with delays more common on most of the lines that run in and out of Penn. Sometimes the failures are catastrophic and perhaps unavoidable, as following the late-December snowstorm that delayed scores of trains for days. But other delays—malfunctioning signals, overhead wires knocked down by trees that the railroad can’t afford to trim—can be chalked up to factors like human error, poor planning or a lack of funding.

Penn Station is one of many choke points in the aging transit system moving people around metro New York. In an era defined by states’ austerity and tapped-out transit authorities, much of the fundamental infrastructure is outdated and overcrowded. And there’s little prospect of it getting much better without politically unpalatable steps being taken, such as higher fares and tolls or a major reallocation of taxpayer dollars.

All of the trains arriving and departing Penn Station, which opened a century ago, come from two tracks toward New Jersey and four tracks toward Long Island. All must arrive on one of the 21 tracks, but many trains can’t fit on some tracks with shorter platforms. By contrast, Grand Central has 46 tracks—and far fewer delays.

A late Amtrak train impacts a New Jersey Transit train which impacts a Long Island Rail Road train which impacts an Amtrak train. It is a problem that many had hoped ARC would solve and now, as Grossman notes, transportation planners are “scrambling” to find better solutions. New Jersey Transit is at the mercy of Amtrak, but the MTA is trying anything it can find to improve the situation.

The authority, says Grossman, “is investigating whether it can run trains through Penn and into New Jersey, shaving precious minutes off the amount of time each spends on a platform, freeing up some capacity. It’s also looking at running some Metro-North trains into Penn once a project to provide LIRR access into Grand Central Terminal is finished.”

Eventually, something is going to have to give. New Jersey and New York will have to figure out a way to work together to address the region’s cross-Hudson rail capacity concerns. The two states will have to work hard to keep costs on the ARC successor project to a reasonable level and will have to battle overruns. The economic impact of planning and building nothing is too severe for us to wait much longer.

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Brooklyn

A tale of a viaduct, a sign and the need to pay attention

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

Manhattan-bound F riders are gearing up for months of inconvenience. (Photo courtesy of @JeffreyNYC)

One of my main themes at Second Ave. Sagas over the past four years has involved New Yorkers’ relationship with transit news. I’ve looked at how the millions of people who rely on the MTA for travel don’t pay attention to the news, how the news doesn’t do an adequate job explaining certain transit stories and how the MTA’s own approach to customer service oftentimes compounds the problem. Nowhere is that more evident than in today’s developing outrage over the upcoming shutdown of stations along the F line in Brooklyn as part of the Culver Viaduct rehab project.

The basis for this tale is a simple one: After three years of planning and the start of Phase 1 of the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation plan, the MTA announced this week that, beginning January 10, Phase 2 shutdowns will begin. In other words, from January 10 through May, as part of a $275.5 million rehab on a structure that’s falling apart, the following changes will be in effect:

  • No Manhattan-bound F or Queens-bound G service at 15th Street Prospect Park and Ft. Hamilton Parkway Stations.
  • No Manhattan-bound F service at Smith-9th Sts Station. Queens-bound G service stops at a temporary platform.
  • All Manhattan and Queens-bound trains stop on the express track at Church Avenue and 7th Avenue stations.
  • Manhattan-bound F and Queens-bound G trains stop at a temporary platform accessed via the Coney Island-bound platform at 4th Avenue-9th Street station.

Somehow, despite years of warning, the locals are outraged. Popular neighborhood blog Fucked in Park Slope is too beside itself for snark while Gothamist is fielding some priceless emails. “We’re new to Windsor Terrace (2 months) and fairly new to New York (6 months),” one Brooklyn resident said. “I’m absolutely livid that this is happening with a week’s notice, especially in the winter. This is the first we’re hearing of this and is part of a chain of the F train messing with us. I’ve lived in cities for the past 10 years and I can tell you this level of fuckery wouldn’t fly in LA or Boston.”

So where to begin? Where to begin? Should we point out that subways in Los Angeles and Boston, you know, shut down over night so that people can’t get home via public transit after midnight? It certainly would be worse living in Windsor Terrace if the last F train departed from midtown at 11:30 p.m. every Friday and Saturday.

But instead, let’s look at some history. In late 2007, New York City Transit unveiled their plans for the Culver Viaduct, and while the timeline has been pushed back and the project slightly scaled down in the intervening years, the same service changes apply. In fact, in a presentation to Community Board 6 in 2007, Transit presented the exact same service patterns going into effect next week. Take a look:

A presentation from 2007 shows plans portending next week's F/G service outage in Brooklyn.

That 2007 presentation wasn’t the only one Transit has delivered to Brooklyn. Take a look at a similar one from 2008. It’s just another in a long line of slideshows Transit’s community relations officials have given to Community Boards. In fact, as recently as this past fall, I sat in on a meeting at which officials discussed these exact service changes.

Furthermore, the MTA has released its own video on the project; and crews have been working on the viaduct for nearly ten months. In other words, since 2007, then, Brooklynites knew or should have known that their service was going to be cut for a few months, and if people moving to the area or already living their failed to do adequate research, that’s on them.

Of course, oblivious locals who don’t seek out transit news aren’t the only ones to blame. In fact, I don’t expect people to attend Community Board meetings and few non-members do. But New York’s various news outlets pay people to attend and report on those meetings, and over that last few years, that’s just what they’ve done. Newspapers ranging from The Daily News to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle have covered the work.

My site is but a small fish in the giant sea of New York media, but unfortunately, Brooklyn news outlets haven’t done a thorough job of explaining the impact of the Culver Viaduct rehab. Take a glance through the Brooklyn Paper search results of stories relating to this work. The paper mentions that service to and from Smith-9th Sts. will be impacted, but it doesn’t explore how the need to run F and G trains on the express tracks will lead to trains bypassing 15th St. and Fort Hamilton Parkway. That’s a failure of media.

Finally, the MTA isn’t absolved of all blame either, and in fact, the authority hasn’t upheld its end of the deal. At a Community Board 6 Transportation Committee meeting earlier this fall, committee members specifically asked the MTA to warn the neighborhoods well ahead of time. Instead, the MTA started hanging up signs portending a four-month service outage just seven days ahead of time. Even though the MTA had warned community groups and received a far amount of press coverage, Transit should be papering stations well ahead of the service outages. The authority can’t force news down people’s throats, but it can do a better job of getting the word out ahead of time. One week is not enough lead time for a warning of this magnitude.

This day of outrage in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace highlights how people simply take the transit system for granted. They’d rather every station but theirs get rehabbed and are content to let infrastructure age if it means they aren’t inconvenienced. The millions of New Yorkers who ride the subway every day are also content to ignore the news that impacts their lifeline to the economic hubs of the city, and the media that covers these areas is content to do a half-hearted job of it. The MTA too doesn’t make it any easier. This is outrage that has been in the works since November 2007, and with a little more effort from everyone, it should have been completely avoidable.

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AsidesMTA Absurdity

Stranded A train riders set to sue

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

As the MTA deals with the fallout from its response to last week’s blizzard — the Daily News would like the authority to overreact to even just a slight threat of snow — lawsuits over stalled trains were all but inevitable. Now, we learn that Aymen Aboushi of the Aboushi Law Firm is looking for plaintiffs who were stuck on the stranded A train want to join a suit against the authority.

Aboushi says that seven passengers are willing to join him in filing a suit, and he hopes to court more. He’s seeking, according to amNew York, an “unspecified amount of money” and “will demand the MTA create guidelines for what to do if passengers are left on a train for more than three hours.” How altruistic of him. “No one’s trying to get rich off this,” the lawyer said to the News recently. “This is to hold the MTA accountable for what happened. We’re really trying to get the MTA’s attention for the average New Yorker.”

The stranded A train was the victim of a perfect storm last week. Stuck in between the Aqueduct stop and Howard Beach when the snow knocked out power to the third rail, the train could not be rescued, and passengers were stuck in the cold for six to eight hours. While Aboushi claims those stranded were left without heat, the MTA says the passengers were brought into two heated cars. Still, the lawyer wants an accounting. “The MTA,” he said, “didn’t offer these people so much as a MetroCard.”

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Capital Program 2010-2014

To tell and show with a new branding campaign

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

These new signs will begin appearing in subway cars everywhere this weekend.

The MTA enters 2011 in a bind. Public trust in the authority has all but vanished amidst another round of fare hikes and service cuts, and politicians find it to be an easy whipping boy for their own failures. Yet, the subways are, except when felled by the weather, moving forward, and to do that, the authority must go, hat in hand, to Albany to ask for a way to fill a $10 billion hole in its capital budget.

That hole is not an insignificant one. As the MTA’s infrastructure inexorably continues to age, the authority has had to ramp up spending on non-revenue-generating maintenance projects. The Second Ave. Subway, for instance, is a traditional project that can be supported by construction bonds because the bonds can be issued off of guarantees of increased ridership and more fare revenue. Repainting a station ceiling and repairing a broken handrail do not lead to the same ridership and revenue increases.

So the MTA needs that money, and the authority needs to prove that the money is going toward making the system more pleasant and more useful for everyone. Enter SubTalk. For nearly 20 years, SubTalk posters had been the voice of the subway, but they have been the voice of no. Don’t hold the doors. Don’t run on the staircase and platforms. Don’t lean over the platform edge. Don’t litter. The informative posters — such as an overly optimistic one about the Second Ave. Subway’s once-projected opening date — seem few and far between.

And so in early December, as I reported then, the MTA rebranded its house ads. “Improving, non-stop” became the new tagline, and the posters featured innovations. One discussed the new countdown clocks; another presented the MTA’s embrace of real-time information on its website; a third talked about the Select Bus Service upgrades. “Traditionally we have used the space to tell our customers what not to do on the system,” Paul Fleuranges, the Senior Director of Corporate and Internal Communications, said to me, “but with this messaging we’re using the space to communicate with our customers by telling them what we’re doing or plan to do.”

What irked many though was the death of Train of Thought, the successor to the now-defunct Poetry in Motion. As part of the rebranding, the MTA temporarily shelved Train of Thought, the posters with quotes from leading intellects, and many were unhappy. “I don’t begrudge them wanting to put their best foot forward,” Gene Russianoff said to The Times. “But if it comes at the price of permanently kiboshing the poetry, I think that’s a mistake.”

The MTA insisting to me that the “Improving, Non-stop” rebranding “is not an image campaign, rather a better use of our internal space.” But even it were an image campaign, I can’t fault the authority for that. Amongst the blizzard and fare hikes, projects delayed and budgets exceeded, labor unrest and dwindling funds, the MTA doesn’t just seem as though it’s constantly under attack; it is constantly under attack. Oftentimes, those attacks are well deserved; other times they’re not.

Yet, we cannot deny the economic reality of the situation: The $10 billion that the MTA needs for its capital budget is far more important than a few posterboards of poetry or inspirational quotes that, by and large, are ignored by most riders. If moving, as Fleuranges said to me, “away from the ‘House of No’ to ‘The Church of What’s Happening Now'” leads to some recognition of capital improvements and an eventual outlay of badly needed capital funds, I think we can sacrifice a few quotations by Abraham Lincoln or Henri Poincare for a few months. I’m sure there’s an app for that anyway.

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