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Benjamin Kabak

Walder on the death of the MetroCard

by Benjamin Kabak December 2, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on December 2, 2010

A swipeless, credit card-based fare payment system could be in our subway-riding future.

Since taking his spot atop the MTA hierarchy, Jay Walder has overseen a push to bring 21st Century transit technology into a system that has long been resistant to modernization. It was that drive that led Gov. David Paterson to appoint Walder to the authority’s top spot, and while many headline-generating projects — the MetroCard replacement program, the countdown clocks — have been in the works for a few years, Walder has seen them move from concept to reality.

In a few years, we could be mourning the death of the MetroCard as transit agencies around the world look to move toward an international fare payment standard. For the past six months ending on Tuesday, the MTA conducted a pilot program with Mastercard’s PayPass and Visa’s payWave technologies. In the final segment of my interview with him, Walder discussed the future of fare payment technologies and the eventual end of the swipe.

Second Ave. Sagas: Improving the fare technology has been a major push of yours over the last year. Where do things stand now? People ask me all the time about improving bus loading times, getting rid of MetroCards, what the next-generation fare payments are going to look like. How soon do you see that technology coming online and what will it look like?

It may well be that the single most demonstrative benefit of a new fare collection system would be on the buses.

Jay Walder: I’m glad you raised bus loading times because it may well be that the single most demonstrative benefit of a new fare collection system would be on the buses. The loading times are horrific on buses, and it’s due, in a large extent, to the fare collection system. The difference is that a MetroCard can take several seconds to dip and an Oyster Card in London is 200 miliseconds. We’re talking about a fundamental shift if we’re able to do it.

The good news out of the pilot program that we’ve had running along the Lexington Ave. line and eight connecting bus routes and express buses is that the system has technologically proven to be satisfactory and has met the objectives that we set out to achieve. It operates off of a standard payments technological platform which I think is beneficial to us going forward. There are some wrinkles that are exactly the sort of thing you would get in a pilot process so better to be doing it in a pilot than otherwise.

The pilot will end at the end of this month, and that’s important because the history of some of the technology pieces is that we did a pilot to get to the next pilot and then we did the next pilot to get to the pilot after that. The point of the pilot ending is that we are concentrating on moving out into the production phase of getting this done, and I think you will see contracts early-to-mid next year that will be moving this forward for the subway and bus system. They will be done in a way that can and should work with the Port Authority and New Jersey Transit. So we can potentially break down the barrier of the Hudson River that way. Also, we’re moving forward with some tests on how we can incorporate some of this into the commuter rail environment as well so that we might think of changing our fare collection process there.

Second Ave. Sagas: Do you anticipate that it will look pretty similar to the Pay Pass system as it’s been set up for the trial?

Walder: There are two parts of it. The actual technology of how this looks will be pretty similar. It might be slightly different, but again we’re trying to stay with standard technology. We’re not trying to build something that’s a custom fit. The second part is that there are elements of what we need to do that are not the norm of what Pay Pass does and we need to find ways to be able to do that as well.

You’ve also seen, if you look at some of what we’re doing on bridges and tunnels right now, we’ve entered into a pilot program there with Visa at a number of stores across the metropolitan region that may well be a model for how we might use the retail environment to refill cards as well. We’re looking at a whole range of things that are involved in that. I think you’ll see us moving to production phase next year.

One of the things we have to work out is the degree to which we do this to a parallel, sort of a side-by-side to the MetroCard or do the degree to which we really do this and have it implemented in a wider range of places but don’t really look to turn it on until we know we can take away the MetroCard. We’re trying to figure that out right now.

Second Ave. Sagas: When will this come online? Is there a year?

Walder: I’m staying away from giving you a year for the moment because we really need to take all of the results of the pilot into account. We need to develop firm plans for the way we’re going to roll this out, and I’m a little worried about being a hostage to fortune unless I give our people time to look at that.

But the direction of travel is very clear, the benefits are very clear. It will be something that is simpler for customers and provides more flexibility in the way we utilize our fare structures. I expect a lot more flexibility in the way that you may be able to get cards, reload cards, and do anything like that, including using the Internet in much different ways in which we do right now. We’ll be using the retail environment in much better ways than we’re able to do it right now. We’ll be potentially moving much more of the payments process away from the MTA and into the payments industry which may be a beneficial thing for us to do. Finally, I think it provides a degree of service, customer service, that people will appreciate. I think anybody who uses a cross-town bus will immediately appreciate it.

This wraps up my interview with Jay Walder. In only 30 minutes, he and I discussed many topics, and hopefully, I’ll be able to sit down with him again in the near future to probe some issues that wasn’t able to cover. In case you missed it, in Part I, I looked at the MTA’s fiscal state; in Part II, we talked about labor relations and alternate revenue sources; and in Part III, I quizzed Walder on the Second Ave. Subway and various other construction plans.

December 2, 2010 29 comments

Second Avenue Subway

Residents on 86th St. file suit over SAS entrances

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

These proposed entrances for the Second Ave. Subway on 86th St. are the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Tenants and owners of an Upper East Side building that will one day have two entrances to the Second Ave. Subway in front of it have filed suit against the Federal Transit Authority and the MTA over what it claims are deficient responses to Freedom of Information requests. The suit stems from a two-year dispute over the MTA’s updated plan to build entrances along 86th St. instead of alone Second Ave., and while the legal issue itself — a FOIL appeal — is fairly straightforward, the underlying complaints are not.

The story begins in front of Yorkshire Towers, the building that spans the northeast side of Second Ave. between East 86th and 87th Streets. The building’s main entrances are on 86th St., and it features a U-shaped driveway as well as two other automobile access points to a subterranean parking garage. Originally, the 86th St. entrance would have been within the Food Emporium at the northeast corner.

A few concerns drove the MTA’s design changes. First, the authority scaled back the SAS from three tracks to two, thus necessitating a new technical examination of the station layouts. Second, the authority had determined that a combination of temporary construction easements and physical plant demands would have resulted in the shuttering of the supermarket and extensive structural work on the building. (For more, check out my 2007 coverage.)

After conducting a Supplemental Environmental Assessment, the authority determined that the proposed changes would have no adverse impact, and the feds signed off on the study. Despite community opposition to the plan, the MTA put forth the design seen above at the top of this post.

For the last few years, the Yorkshire Towers Tenants Association has tried to FOIL the documents that underlie the assumptions in the SEA study, and the MTA has, they allege, not obliged. Alleging that they’ve been “stonewalled,” the plaintiffs are requesting the documents because they believe the findings are fault.

Therein lies the rub. While the MTA is required to respond to the FOIL request, the tenants’ association is searching for a bigger fish to fry. “The RMA” — the Residential Midblock Alternative — says the filing, “would create unprecedented and substantial impacts to an area with a completely different residential character than the normal commercial intersections where most subway entrances are located.” Furthermore, the RMA would impact “four active driveways,” the Yorkshire plaintiffs allege.

Claiming that the MTA’s decision to eschew an RMA at 72nd St. is inconsistent with their proposal to go forward with one on 86th St., the Yorkshire plaintiffs believe the MTA’s FOIL responses to be inadequate. The Yorkshire requests are lengthy. You can read their full correspondence right here (PDF). They supplied only the MTA’s table of contents as evidence of a deficient FOIL response (PDF).

It seems to me though that the residents are by and large concerned about the sidewalks in front of their buildings and the driveway access. As the schematics show, the entrances will point away from the building entrances but will block the driveway’s sightlines, something the plaintiffs say will have a “serious[] impact[]” on “parents with children, older people and safety concerns.” It strikes me though as NIMBYism. They don’t want the subway access points in front of the building even if people won’t be walking past the building’s entrance.

I’ve included the lawsuit after the jump. Legitimate gripes or a typical “not on my sidewalk-and-driveway” complaint? You decide.

December 1, 2010 25 comments

Asides New York City Transit

Transit to increase weekend service for December

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

You wouldn’t know it from the warm, rainy day that has descended upon New York, but the calendar flipped to December today. With the final month of the year comes the holiday shopping and tourism season. Tourism spikes, and as track work slows down, subway travel climbs as more people fill the city. To meet demand and make travel more pleasant for everyone, Transit announced today that it will be increasing weekend subway service this month.

The services increases start this weekend and will last for the next three weekend through December 19th. During this stretch, headways on the IRT local routes — the 1 and 6 trains — will see wait times drop from eight to six minutes. The 2 and 3 trains will operate every five minutes instead of six, and the 4 and 5 trains will arrive every four minutes instead of every five. On the lettered lines, E service will increase from every ten minutes on Saturday evening and Sunday to every 7.5 minutes throughout the weekend. F and Q train riders will see also see waits shortened from 10 minutes to 7.5 minutes.

The MTA says ridership increases in December are driven largely by those out for holiday shopping. “This is an extremely busy time of year for weekend travel and we are increasing our scheduled weekend service in areas of historically high ridership,” NYC Transit President Thomas Prendergast said. “By adding extra trains we are able to increase capacity and also shorten the wait time for riders.”

December 1, 2010 0 comment

ARC Tunnel Asides

New Jersey disputing Fed’s ARC money assessment

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

The Federal Transit Administration, as I reported earlier this week, is demanding $271 million in ARC Tunnel money in the wake of Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to cancel the project, and New Jersey isn’t happy with the request. Right now, the state and its elected officials are looking at two possible outs. On the one hand, New Jersey’s federal representatives are looking to reduce the amount owed. “We have to talk to the FTA to mitigate that amount,” Senator Robert Menendez said. “We find that the governor made a decision, and we’re told to go and fix it. We’ll do the best we can.”

On the other hand, the state will authorize New Jersey Transit to file suit against the feds. New Jersey, reports Jason Method, “plans to argue that the federal government is using selective enforcement in attempting to recoup the money.” Said a Christie spokesman, “The governor will fight to make sure that New Jersey and its taxpayers are treated fairly by the federal government on this issue.”

In requesting payment, the FTA cited Section 5309(g)(3)(B)(iv) of Title 49 of the U.S. Code. That law governs FTA grants and reads, “If an applicant does not carry out the project for reasons within the control of the applicant, the applicant shall repay all Government payments made under the work agreement plus reasonable interest and penalty charges the Secretary establishes in the agreement.” If a suit is filed, the feds will argue that since New Jersey agreed to cover cost overruns, Christie’s decision to cancel the project due to concerns over cost is “within the control of the applicant.” Clearly, this drama is far from over.

December 1, 2010 14 comments

MTA Construction Second Avenue Subway

Walder talks 2nd Ave. Subway and weekend work

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

Jay Walder fields questions while standing in front of the Second Avenue Subway tunnel boring machine. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

On day one, Jay Walder, MTA CEO and Chair, and I talked about the fiscal state of the authority. On day two, I presented his views on labor relations and alternate revenue sources. Today, we start with a topic near and dear to my heart: the Second Ave. Subway.

We all know the story of the Second Ave. Subway. Eight decades in the making, the MTA is finally building part of the badly-needed line. Phase 1 of the SAS, one of the MTA’s three ongoing megaprojects, is due to be completed at the end of 2016 and at a cost of $4.5 billion. I quizzed Walder on the future of the rest of the project. Today’s is a longer segment so let’s dive right in.

Second Ave. Sagas: One of the main thrusts of my site is the Second Ave. Subway and the capital expansion plans. I know there’s still some funding needed for Phase One, but I have to assume it’s too far along for the plug to be pulled. The political ramifications from Washington, from the City, from the MTA would just be too great to stop the project. What do you see as the future of the Second Ave. Subway? Do you realistically see a Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4? How long should we expect that to take?

Jay Walder: My focus almost exclusively has been on the fact that we have three megaprojects that we’re doing right now. These are the first megaprojects that we have been doing for a generation — we’re really talking about 70 years depending upon how you count the stuff that has happened. My focus has been on ensuring that we’re able to deliver these projects on the budget and the schedule that we’ve laid out. As you note, our capital program is not funded with all of the money necessary to complete these projects right now, and that remains a concern. We need to find a way to ensure that we are completing these projects.

At the same time, my other concern is that the mantra of this organization has been that we have to bring our existing system back to good repair, and we need to keep it in that condition. There’s much to be proud of in that regard. I started in this organization in 1983. When I started, the mean distance between breakdowns on subway trains was 7000 miles. It’s about 150,000 miles today. That’s a startling difference. You go around and you look at our station environment, and your jaw drops. Some of the station work is so nice and it’s been brought back — either bringing back the existing stuff and some of the artwork we’ve put in, and other things like that.

But in fact, what this system is is a huge system that in essence is composed of lots of unseen hidden infrastructure that’s depreciating and deteriorating all the time. We need to continue to invest in that. The scarier thing is not the trains and the station. The scarier things are the signals and the pumps and the track and the shops and the other things that continue to need huge amounts of investment.

We have a subway system today that has one line — exactly one line — that has modern technology for signals. The L train is the only line on which we’re using communications-based train control. We’ve now awarded a contract for the second line on the Flushing Line. But really, this is the type of technology that we need to be using across our system now. We are fortunate that we don’t have the red tags and the track problems and the other things that were going on in the late 1970s and early 1980s but we don’t have that because we invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the normal replacement of tracks. So that’s where I’ve been focused so far.

If you look at the Second Ave. Subway piece, to their credit, the planners with the way they set this up 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, is a usable railway and will make an immediate difference in what happens. You’re well-placed point is that 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.

Will future sections of the Second Avenue Subway see the light of a day? (Click to enlarge the map)

Second Ave. Sagas: The people I’ve spoken of say Phase 2 would be easier to build out than the other phases, but they wonder what the appetite for a project that’s taken longer than initial thought, that costs more than initial thought. Where will the money come from or the will and drive to see it through?

December 1, 2010 31 comments

View from Underground

Video of the Day: Roosevelt Island tram returns

by Benjamin Kabak November 30, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 30, 2010

Via The New York Post comes a video look inside the brand-spankin’-new Roosevelt Island Tramway cars. Out of service for the past nine months as the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation modernized a system prone to leaving commuters dangling 250 feet above the East River, the new cars are bigger, more stable and, supposedly, longer lasting than the ones they’ve replaced.

“Roosevelt Island’s Tramway is once again the most modern urban aerial transportation system in the world,” Leslie Torres, President of RIOC, said this morning. “It’s built to serve residents, business, and tourists for the next thirty years.”

The tram upgrades cost a total of $25 million — with $15 million coming from the state and $10 million from the RIOC. The modernized tramway includes two separate tram systems in which each cable operates independently of each other. This way, the RIOC can better conduct preventative maintenance while keeping one side of the tramway in service. Cabins are now attached with double-hanger arms for a more stable ride, and the tramway is now equipped with four back-up generators. (In April 2006, the tramway had stalled above the East River for 11 hours.)

“The tram is not just a vibrant symbol of all that is unique about Roosevelt Island,” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said at the ribbon-cutting. “It’s an only-in-New York icon of our great city just like the Empire State Building or Grand Central Station. It’s also an extremely active, critical mode of mass transit, and I am delighted to join its thousands of riders in welcoming it back and better than ever.”

November 30, 2010 5 comments

International Subways

In Los Angeles, a subway system grows

by Benjamin Kabak November 30, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 30, 2010

The LA subway system is set for a massive expansion. (Map via The New York Times)

For decades, New York City has been the transit capital of the U.S.A. We enjoy an expansive 468-station, 722-mile subway system that runs 24 hours a day and stretches across five boroughs. Transit’s daily ridership is higher than the combined total from every other subway system in the country, and without the subways, New York City as it is today would simply not be a viable geographic urban hub.

But over the last four decades, as the region has struggled to maintain its vast infrastructure, expansion plans have fallen by the wayside. Since the opening of the Chrystie St. Connection in 1968, the city hasn’t built out its system. A modest expansion along Archer Ave. and the completion of the 63rd St. tunnel were the major projects during the 1980s and 1990s. Today, at a cost of nearly $7 billion, the MTA is adding one stop to the 7 line and three along the Upper East Side’s stretch of Second Ave. It isn’t, by any means, impressive.

Three thousand miles away, on the coast known more for its cars than its trains, the City of Angels is working toward its own subway system. Los Angeles is planning to spend $40 billions on a 28-mile expansion of its rail transit system. The city will build an 8.6-mile extension of the Purple Line through Koreatown, an 11-mile addition to the Gold Line, an 8.5-mile light-rail route from LAX and another light rail route from Santa Monica to Culver City Adam Nagourney in The Times today takes a look at this reimagining of the Los Angeles transitscape:

Taken together, these developments have emboldened mass transit enthusiasts here and lent credibility to what has become something of a legacy project for Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who ran for office pledging to build a transit system that would upend long-established commuting habits and ease what has long been a bane of life in Los Angeles.

“This put to rest all this talk of, ‘Will we ever build a subway?’ ” Mr. Villaraigosa said, somewhat triumphantly, in an interview. “This is a big deal. People have been talking about it for years. And they were making fun of me: ‘Where is the subway?!’ ”

Los Angeles once had a large, intricate and thriving public transportation system, with so-called Yellow Car trolleys that ran on downtown streets and a vast network of Red Cars, operated by the Pacific Electric Railroad, that ran throughout the region. This was dismantled amid the city’s fervent embrace of the automobile (encouraged, in no small part, by oil interests in Los Angeles that realized the economic potential of the car).

But with a vote by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s board last month to approve the Purple Line expansion, there is a consensus that these projects are going to be built, even among those who describe them as a waste of money in a region that will never embrace mass transit. The projects are being financed by a half-cent sales tax surcharge approved by Los Angeles voters two years ago and expected to raise $40 billion over the next 30 years.

Yet, in LA, as the pipe dream of the Subway to the Sea inches closer to reality, residents, planners and politicians are still questioning the wisdom behind the spending. For Mayor Villaraigosa, the $40 billion appears as a traditional bond issue. Since the city plans to add distance and capacity, they can bond against future anticipated fare revenue, but even then, many wonder if Los Angeles can become a city of the subway.

One mass transit consultant from the Bay Area has labeled the plan in no uncertain terms. “They have been pushing rail expansion for decades now,” Tom Rubin said, “and it has not had much of an impact in terms of increasing transit ridership. The big problem is that these are very, very expensive, and we wind up spending so much money on building these rail lines that there is not enough to operate bus service. So we wind up cutting back on bus operations and then raising fares, which drives the riders away.”

Rubin highlights the same capital-vs.-operations battle being fought in New York, but he seems to ignore that adding distance to rail makes pushing for it as a viable modality more appealing. If the subway goes where people need it to go, they will leave their cars behind. If, as promised, a 50-minute drive becomes a 25-minute subway ride, driving becomes a waste of time.

“The science of public transit is not too complicated,” Robert Cervero, director of Berkeley’s Transportation Center, said to The Times. “It comes down to how time-competitive transit is with the private car. If it takes two to three times longer to get from Point A to Point B by transit, the vast majority of folks will drive. If it’s faster going by bus or train, then most will forsake their car and ride transit.” (Jonathan Hiskes at Grist disputes this simplification.)

Ultimately, Los Angeles won’t move ahead of New York anytime soon, but the Land of Freeways is moving forward. On the East Coast, we’re stuck in neutral. Saddled with debt, unable to issue bonds appropriately and faced with crushing costs, our 106-year-old subway system expands outward slowly, if at all.

November 30, 2010 26 comments

Paratransit

For disabled riders, an inaccessible system

by Benjamin Kabak November 30, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 30, 2010

Earlier this fall, a group of advocates fighting for the rights of disabled New Yorkers made headlines when they filed suit against the MTA over plans for the Dyckman St. station rehab. The suit, which alleges an overall failure on the part of Transit to make the subway system handicapped-accessible, says that the authority is not fulfilling its obligations under the ADA as it renovates Dyckman St. in Upper Manhattan. The MTA does not comment on ongoing legal fights, and work has proceeded apace at the station.

Piggybacking off of the attention given to the lawsuit, Jillian Jonas wrote an extensive piece on the state of underground accessibility for Gotham Gazette, and as you would imagine, disabilities advocates are not happy. Only 89 subway stations are accessible while 379 are not. “It is an absolute disgrace that 20 years after the ADA was passed, more than 80 percent of the subway stations in New York are inaccessible,” attorney Julie Pinovar said in October and repeated to Jonas.

In essence, the problems are threefold: The MTA is legally required to upgrade only 100 “Key Station” under an exemption from the Americans with Disabilities Act, an unfunded federal mandate, and advocates have been happy with that arrangement. Meanwhile, escalator and elevator outages lead to situations where accessible stations are made inaccessible, and disabled riders have little advanced notice of the malfunctions. Finally, the MTA opted for Access-A-Ride in the early 1980s, and the costs from that program have spiraled out of control, leading the authority to try to cut services for the disabled. No one is happy with the arrangement.

Ultimately, the problem is one of paying it forward. MTA officials opted for a paratransit solution at a time when they didn’t have money or foresight. They reportedly believed Access-A-Ride would cost just $9 million a year, and now it costs $450 million annually. Had they spent the money over the decades on station upgrades, fewer riders would need Paratransit, and most of the system would be accessible. Had the federal government been willing to foot any of the bill for the costly ADA upgrades, the entire fight would be moot.

“The MTA made a stupid decision in the 1980s when … they [were] foolishly relegating people with disabilities to Access-A-Ride, not realizing how the cost would grow over the years if they didn’t do more than make buses accessible,” Edith Prentiss, a vice president with Disabled In Action of Metropolitan New York, said. “For years, bus lifts were as unreliable as subway elevators are today.”

While Paratransit trips number just under 16,000 a day — compared with over 5 million daily subway riders — this is a costly problem that hits disabled riders particularly hard. They do not want to be relegated to second-class status and have been vocal critics of the MTA. Still, a solution remains out of hand and out of sight as money and costs are, as always, the overarching problems.

November 30, 2010 22 comments

Subway Advertising Transit Labor

Interviewing Jay Walder: Labor relations and revenue sources

by Benjamin Kabak November 30, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 30, 2010

A postcard distributed by union leaders earlier this year when MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder took a summer vacation is indicative of the tense relationship between labor and management at the MTA.

In yesterday’s excerpt from my interview with Jay Walder, the MTA head and I spoke about the economic pressures which the authority is currently facing. Walder spoke at length about avoiding future service cuts and ensuring that money promised to and raised for the MTA actually finds its way into the authority’s coffers.

Today, we pick up the thread of the MTA finances but with a different bend. One of Walder’s biggest failings — and he’ll admit it himself — has been management’s strenuous relationship with labor. The TWU, the authority’s largest union which is currently suffering through dissension in the ranks, has not shown a willingness to compromise on benefits, pensions or raises, and with contract negotiations on tap for late 2011, the MTA is searching for ways to rein in runaway labor costs.

Meanwhile, while maintaining spending levels are a priority, so too are increasing revenues. To do so without service cuts or fare hikes, the MTA has looked to non-traditional sources of advertising. By offering station branding and full train wraps, the authority can drive marketing opportunities and generate more dollars to fill its depleted coffer. Even station names are for sale.

Second Ave. Sagas: One of the assumptions in the 2011 budget projections, as far as I can tell, is that the labor costs won’t really be increasing over the next two years. Do you think that that’s a realistic and obtainable goal?

I strongly believe that labor has to be part of the solution. That is a view that has been stated by the governor-elect. It’s a view that has been stated by the mayor.

Jay Walder: I’m actually very proud of what the MTA has achieved in reducing costs so far, but an area where I’m terribly disappointed that we clearly have not achieved what we’re trying to do is in forming partnerships with our labor unions, to be able to look at this and in essence, say that we’re talking about a historically difficult time in which businesses and families all across the state are struggling. One might have hoped that we might have found the context to stand together with our workforce, shoulder to shoulder and show that we were able to do things differently, that we were able to find different productivity. We recognize that some of the arrangements that had existed for long periods of time, even if you don’t change them for existing employees, need to change on a going-forward basis. We didn’t find a way to be able to do that.

Having said that, I strongly believe that labor has to be part of the solution. That is a view that has been stated by the governor-elect. It’s a view that has been stated by the mayor. People are saying, “Look, we can’t do this apart from labor. We have to do this with labor.” Some people point to the period in the 1970s when the city was in the midst of its financial crisis, and labor and management did stand together and did try to find a solution to be able to deal with that crisis. It allowed the city to get back on its feet and prosper and grow. I think we’re at that same sort of time.

Do I believe that it is possible to do it? Yes. It is easy to do it? Obviously not. We haven’t succeeded to this point. I’d be kidding you if I said that. But I do think it’s possible to do it.

The point that we made is not that our workforce should not be compensated; it’s to say that you really should be tying compensation into the achievement of productivity improvements. Everybody I’ve talked to inside and outside of our organization believes productivity improvements are possible. What we need to do is bring it to the table, to stand together to be able to do this and to say, “Hey, if we’re really trying to figure out how to do this, to protect our transit system, to continue to have jobs for people but to show people that we are really using every dollar wisely, how do we do it together?” I’m not giving up on that. I haven’t given up on that. I believe it is achievable. I think we’ll get there.

The Shuttle, branded for the Major League Baseball playoffs by TBS and MLB, has become a testing ground for the MTA's expanding advertising opportunities. (Photo by Lorenzo Bevilaquia/TBS)

Second Ave. Sagas: The Chicago naming rights deal with Apple has gotten a decent amount of attention over the last few weeks. I know the Barclays deal was the first major MTA naming rights deal. Are there other efforts being made to identify naming partners? Is there a push to look out of the box beyond the traditional sources of revenue?

Walder: I wasn’t here at the time that the Citi Field issues came up, but I gather we didn’t succeed in that. I think the Barclays deal is the first time we have succeeded in doing something of that nature. Should we be thinking out of the box? What are the ways we should bring revenue in? The answer is yes.

I hope you’ll think of our advertising contracts in that way. What you saw this year were some real efforts to break down some of the barriers. We’ve done some really neat things in terms of advertising that are bringing real money in, and I think that the win-win on this is where you’re doing some things that both improve the ambiance of the subway environment and the bus environment but also raise some money for the transit system. My favorite one was the wrap on the train for TBS with the television screens. I think that’s a great example of breaking down some barrriers. We’re bringing about $100 million in doing that.

Let me give you another example which I just looked at this morning which I really like. You’ll look at this and say it’s not revolutionary but I don’t think you need revolutionary. We just opened up a Bank of American ATM location inside the subway station at 42nd St. and 8th Ave. in the mezzanine level above the 8th Ave. Line. Why do I like it so much? Because it’s bringing into the subway environment the type of retail presentation that we’re used to above ground. In other words, you look at this and you’ll say this doesn’t look very different from another type of ATM space that I might go into. But that’s exactly my point. What’s that doing is raising money for the subway but it’s also actually making people feel that this is what I see underground, it is the way I do it, it is bringing me that kind of retail that I want to see. I thought it was terrific because it was doing that.

All of these things come together. Can we make some money on some of these initiatives? Yes. We will make more money if we can improve the retail environment in the subway system, get greater value out of the spaces that we have there, improve the ambiance and the customer satisfaction. We’ll make more money than all of the naming rights deals that you’re talking about.

These other things are much more valuable to us if we can find a way to do that. The wrap that we did — the Target wrap — was terrific. There are lots of things you’re seeing this year that are breaking down some barriers.

I also believe that the way we incorporate technology into our stations also provides an opportunity to be able to increase revenue flow. In that case, we might well be able to actually meet three objectives. We can make some money off of the way we bring digital into our stations. We can be improving ambiance, and we may well come up with some ways to be able to provide useful real-time information to customers that follows and is all part of the same goal. If we can do those three things, than we really knock the ball out of the park.

Still to come, Jay Walder discusses capital expansion plans, the Second Ave. Subway and next-generation fare payment technologies.

November 30, 2010 33 comments

ARC Tunnel Asides

Feds to NJ: Give us back our $271 million

by Benjamin Kabak November 29, 2010

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 29, 2010

The fallout from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to cancel the ARC Tunnel continues as the feds have sent New Jersey Transit a letter formally requesting the return of over $271 million in federal funding. The letter — available here as a PDF — is the second such notice sent to the state, and while New Jersey Transit has disputed the amount requested, the feds have set a December 24 deadline for payment.

If New Jersey falls to contest the validity of the amount requested or pay by Christmas Eve, the FTA will consider the state delinquent in its payments. If the delinquency date is reached, the FTA can pursue numerous options. It could report New Jersey to credit and bond rating institutions, and it can request interest of six percent annually. Finally, it can forward the debt to the U.S. Department of Justice for collection enforcement as well.

Ultimately, the feds have “deobligated” New Jersey from repaying all it is had doled out for ARC because $77 million of the initial $348 million went unspent. Thus the state must pay the difference, and by the time they do so, New Jersey will have sunk $600 million into project planning for a total loss of $871 million. “We now know that his looking out for our financial interests will cost New Jersey taxpayers at least $271 million,” John Wisniewski, chair of both the New Jersey Democratic State Committee and New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee, said. “To make matters worse, the governor has now pledged New Jersey money to help finance New York’s subway expansion — without even seeing a plan or a cost estimate. It doesn’t seem like he’s being much of a financial watchdog, only a theatrical bulldog.”

November 29, 2010 23 comments

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