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SBS reaction as a microcosm for the MTA

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 14, 2010

The Select Bus Service along 1st and 2nd Avenues has been in place for all four days, and already, East Siders are calling it a failure. Egged on by a media that seems to be rooting for failure, bus commuters along these two avenues have shown no patience for the new bus service. “This is awful,” Sarah Schneider said to Pete Donohue of the Daily News as she waited for the bus on Tuesday.

From the get-go, press coverage of the Select Bus Service has been, as I explored earlier this week, highly critical. Instead of examining the benefits of the new bus service, the press has focused only on the hiccups, and the public has picked up on the complaints as well. Someone had to wait a few extra minutes for a bus? They get a quote in the paper. Someone doesn’t understand how to pay before boarding? They get a quote in the paper. Someone thinks Select Bus Service is just too darn complicated? They get a quote in the paper.

Eventually, something has to give, and Mayor Bloomberg this week has lashed out at the media. “I’m sure there’s going to be confusion this morning,” he said to reporters. “I’m sure you’ll write a big exposé that it’s a total failure, and six months from now, you will never write the story that it’s the success that it’s going to be.”

The MTA, who went through similar growing pains before the Select Bus Service in the Bronx became a success, is going to wait out the storm. “There’s much room for improvement,” Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said on Tuesday. “This is our first full day of weekday service. We’re going to keep monitoring and adjusting this service every day until we bring it up to the level that we expect and our customers expect.”

There is but one problem though: The reaction to the Select Bus Service isn’t just your typical response to change from New Yorkers who like their routines. Rather, it is a reaction to the MTA today. The beleaguered authority has lost so much public credibility that it can’t just tell people it’s improving bus service; it has to show them instead. But when New Yorkers grow so apathetic toward transit, showing gets that much tougher.

The idea of Select Bus Service in New York City is not a new one. The plans for this bus network grew out of a series of meetings between transit advocates and local politicians in the early 2000s, and over a series of MTA heads and DOT commissioners, the current Select Bus Service plans were developed. This isn’t, as one critic on Second Ave. Sagas charged, something Jay Walder created.

Meanwhile, the East Side bus routes aren’t the first to enjoy the SBS upgrades. The Bx12 has been a part of the Select Bus Service pilot since mid-2008, and after lane enforcement issues and initial difficulties with the pre-boarding fare payment system, the SBS route has drastically improved bus service. Manhattanites should take a lesson, but they don’t. They didn’t attend the numerous planning meetings and community open houses; they didn’t absorb the news coverage of the bus changes; they didn’t listen to their elected politicians who openly championed improved bus service.

For the MTA, this is but another in a long line of public examples of distrust. When Jay Walder says he won’t cut service again before his term is out in 2015, no one believes him even though the MTA’s 2010 service cuts were the first in a generation. When the authority talks about bringing technology online or replacing the MetroCard, most people question the rationale for these decisions. If it isn’t broke, if the bus moves very slowly but still moves, why change a good thing?

The media of course is willing to pick up on it. It’s far more interesting to find the people who want to complain than those who noticed a ride to work on the M15 that was 20 minutes faster today than it was a week ago. Yet, the MTA hasn’t earned public trust, and the customers doubt this seemingly top-heavy authority can deliver the goods. Until the agency starts showing instead of telling, it will, for better or worse, be left with a credibility gap perpetuated by politicians looking for brownie points and reporters looking to move copies of the paper. That’s life in the age of MTA skepticism.

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AsidesService Cuts

Walder: No more service cuts on my watch

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder plans to serve out his full six-year term as the head of the beleaguered transit authority, and this morning, he vowed that the MTA would not cut train and bus service again on his watch. “I think we’ve heard the voice of the people,” he said. “Our intent is not to cut those services any further.” While speaking at a Crain’s New York Business breakfast this morning, Walder said he could not promise the same when it comes to fare hikes. Despite recent efforts to close a substantial budget gap, the MTA is slated to raise fares again in 2013, and Walder plans to adhere to that schedule. I’ll have more on Walder’s comments at the breakfast later.

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Buses

Video of the Day: Prepping for Select Bus Service

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

As East Side bus riders adjust to the ins and outs of Select Bus Service, the MTA has released a time-lapse video of the preparation that goes into this new service. The new video shows how workers readied and wrapped Bus 1268 for
Select Bus Service while the vehicle was laid up at the 126th St. Bus Depot. Say what you will about Select Bus Service — and plenty of people already are — but the wrapping the blue flashing lights certainly give these buses the look of something new and better.

In other SBS-related news, Pete Donohue from the Daily News took the new service for a spin. Although his coverage contains some of the negativity from the riders against which I railed earlier in the week, he presents a balanced assessment of the service, at least in the early goings. The MTA admitted to him that the service needs some fine-tuning, and Donohue found that the dedicated lanes were often blocked by other vehicles. The city must ramp up enforcement to solve those problems before camera enforcement begins next month.

Still, the MTA recognizes that the agency has work to do yet. “There’s much room for improvement,” Transit Charles Seaton said to Donohue. “This is our first full day of weekday service. We’re going to keep monitoring and adjusting this service every day until we bring it up to the level that we expect and our customers expect.”

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MTA Politics

Paladino: MTA ‘needs to be abolished’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

When it comes to transit policy, Carl Paladino is the gift that keeps on giving. Just one week after threatening to take apart the MTA piece by piece, the Republican nominee for New York State governor said that he wants to flat-out abolish the MTA. His reasons, of course, make no sense.

As Kenneth Lovett of the Daily News relates, Paladino wants to, in the words of the News reporter, “make the agency a state department that answers directly to the governor.” Of course, Paladino conveniently forgets that the governor is responsible for appointing the MTA head and that the authority already answers to the state assembly’s oversight committee.

The best parts though are Paladino’s direct quotes. He said:

“The bottom line is the MTA as we know it today needs to be abolished so the voters can demand that someone can be held accountable for the rampant waste in the system and the taxes and rider fees that feed the bureaucratic beast…

“The MTA is horribly mismanaged and it’s a sinkhole of money. It’s among the least transparent entities in the world and was even found to have kept two separate sets of books. New Yorkers are paying more each year getting less in service.”

Here, Paladino is flat-out lying. As I’ve documented in the past, the 2003 claim by then-Comptroller and now-convicted felon Alan Hevesi that the MTA kept two sets of books was disproved in federal court. Today, the MTA is not among the least transparent authorities in the country but rather among the most transparent. Its budget documents are on full display for anyone to see. Paladino, apparently, has never bothered to look for the information.

Meanwhile, he’s not wrong to say that the authority historically has been a sinkhole of money, but lately, those in charge have reversed that trend. On Jay Walder’s watch, the MTA has cut $730 million in annual expenses and is working to keep costs under control. New Yorkers do pay more for less service, but that’s because Paladino’s GOP predecessors — and in particular, Rudy Giuiliani and George Pataki — foisted billions of dollars of debt onto the MTA in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In the end, Paladino explained his rationale in a way that actually makes some sense. “Mayors, governors and legislators want to be able to rail against the MTA,” he said, “but they really want to be insulated against the decisions that they make so the voters can’t blame them for increasing fares and services cuts.”

As Cap’n Transit wrote back in 2008, that’s exactly why the MTA should be abolished. If the voters knew how badly state officials were screwing over transit and how responsible these officials are for fare hikes and service cuts, perhaps we would see a better approach to transit policy.

But Paladino’s original reasons for abolishing the MTA simply do not hold up to scrutiny. The agency is not horribly mismanaged right now, and it’s quite transparent. There’s still a long road toward a lean structure at the authority, but it’s finally on the right track. Turning it into another subsidiary of the New York State Department of Transportation, as Paladino seems to suggest, would be a considerable setback. The MTA as we knew it five years ago needed to be abolished, and that’s the process we’re seeing unfold today.

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Transit Labor

Once more unto the labor breach

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

When postcards such as this one hit the streets, it's little surprise Jay Walder and labor aren't getting along.

Back in mid-August at the heigh of vacation season, the TWU issued a postcard condemning Jay Walder for taking a vacation. The MTA CEO and Chair had dared to decamp to his house in France, purchased with money earned while he worked for Transport for London and the consulting firm McKinsey. While TWU workers were being laid off, Walder was taking his time off, and this was cause for consternation. TWU president John Samuelsen even said that Walder was “an elitist rich guy totally out of touch with his workers and New York City transit riders.”

Now, as Jay Walder marks his first year in office and reflects back on the tough choices he’s had to make, labor is at the forefront of his regrets. He may have trimmed nearly $730 million from the authority’s annual rolls, but his public relations with the MTA’s labor unions, he told a York College crowd, have been far from perfect. “The biggest disappointment that I’ve had in one year at the MTA,” Walder said, “has been the inability to be able to partner with our labor unions.”

NY1’s John Mancini had more:

Walder told a York College audience that talks to negotiate new work rules and reduced benefits for new employees broke down. That’s no surprise. The folks he wants to partner with include John Samuelsen, head of the the city’s largest transit union, who has mocked him repeatedly as an out-of-touch rich guy.

“Jay Walder’s idea of a partnership is a one-way street in his direction,” Samuelsen said in a recent statement. “For Jay, it’s always about cutting transit workers’ pay and benefits, and destroying conditions of labor negotiated over 75 years.”

With nearly a thousand layoffs, it’s been a rough year for labor relations at the MTA. And in recent days, management has stepped up its call for union concessions. When the MTA board voted this week to hike fares, they heard a new warning. “We are faced with union contracts now that are truly onerous,” said MTA Vice Chairman Andrew Saul. “We have antiquated work rules, which makes it hard for us to modernize the system. We have pension costs and benefits that are just really going out of control here.”

It has indeed been a rough year for Walder and the unions, but the TWU, the city’s largest union, isn’t having an easy go of it either. Earlier this summer, in a contentious vote, the TWU chose to give a full benefits package to laid-off workers. Current union members may donate $5 a week to fund the health insurance coverage, and as the measure passed by a margin of just 64 votes, some current members resent the payouts.

“There are a lot of people who feel that it’s unjustified,” Ron Shpiller, a shop steward, said in August. “A lot of people feel it was not presented properly…We can’t afford to pay for our own children, but we’re going to pay for people we don’t really know.”

At the time, John Samuelsen dismissed these dissenters as a threat to union solidarity, but since August, the dissent has grown louder. As Ari Paul of The Chief-Ledger reported last week, the union’s Secretary-Treasurer and Samuelsen are now at odds. The dispute is a long and winding one involving two TWU staffers, but the animosity stems from the health care vote.

Meanwhile, to pile on even more, David Brooks in The Times blames escalating pension and benefits costs for the failure of the ARC Tunnel. “States across the nation will be paralyzed for the rest of our lives because they face unfunded pension obligations that, if counted accurately, amount to $2 trillion — or $87,000 per plan participan,” he says. “All in all, governments can’t promote future prosperity because they are strangling on their own self-indulgence.”

Brooks, never one to miss the opportunity, fingers Democrats as the culprits. The party of the left is too cozy with labor, he says, but in New York City, party affiliation matters little when it comes to union support. Everyone is both guilty and innocent.

What the future holds for these rocky relationships is anyone’s guess. Historically, the labor movement has been a boon for the American workforce as we now enjoy weekends, paid time off, sick leave, maternity leave and a variety of other benefits. But lately, pension and benefit costs have left everyone scrambling, and Walder has been slammed by the pushback from his own offensive. The TWU’s contract is up in 2012, one year before the MTA’s next scheduled fare hike. I can only imagine the state of this relationship then.

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MTA Technology

Video of the Day: Countdown clocks going up

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 12, 2010

The MTA, via its official YouTube channel, posted the above video this afternoon. As the countdown clock rollout along the A Division nears its mid-2011 completion, the authority has installed nearly 100 clocks since October 2009. Considering how long it took to get the PA/CIS pilot from the L train to the IRT line, the rate of installation has increased markedly recently.

I’ve always been a big supporter of the countdown clocks because they eliminate a source of frustration. Instead of peering endlessly into dark tunnels while checking our watches every five minutes, straphangers waiting for their trains can rest peacefully knowing that the clock is accurate and that the train will soon be arriving. It takes the surprise of waiting, and it eliminates the fear of a delayed commute. It’s more comforting to know that you’re going to be on time. While staring into a tunnel is a time-honored New York City subway tradition, it’s one we’re not going to miss.

The video isn’t anything spectacular. Mostly, it tells us what we already know. But I appreciate the time-lapse photography of a work crew setting up a new countdown clock. Hopefully, technological innovation underground will continue for the foreseeable future.

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ARC Tunnel

How the ARC Tunnel was saved — for two weeks

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 12, 2010

The deep cavern in Manhattan is one of Governor Christie's gripes with the ARC Tunnel. (Via ARCTunnel.com)

Since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced in mid-September that he would be suspending work on the trans-Hudson rail crossing we know as the ARC Tunnel, the staff of The Star-Ledger has been all over this story. They were the first to report on the suspension and have numerous sources within the Christie Administration keeping them abreast of the latest developments. Their latest piece — a glimpse inside the negotiations with the feds that resulted in a two-week reprieve for the project — might just be their best.

The gist of their piece is, as the headline suggests, the 36 hours that saved the ARC Tunnel. They track Christie’s decision to make the announcement to scrap the tunnel after he made a few key political appearances in Iowa and the timing of the announcement that conveniently coincided with testimony by Bret Schundler on a mistake that cost New Jersey hundreds of millions of federal education dollars. Christie, they say, was intent on scraping the ARC Tunnel as early as June but acted recently when it became politically prudent to do so. They write:

Christie — riding a wave of national popularity built on the combination of his government-cutting bona fides and his tough-guy-from-Jersey image — was already leaning toward killing the project as far back as June, say those close to him. Last month, in a decision that startled transportation advocates and Washington, Christie abruptly suspended the project after more than half a billion dollars had already been spent. But it was not until last week that he made the final decision to cancel.

The actual timing of the governor’s final decision caught many off guard — including those in Washington. And it came as the governor was suffering through a public flogging at the hands of one of his own — the man he had chosen to lead his push to reform education. Bret Schundler had been fired in August in a dispute over a failed $400 million federal grant.

Thursday morning, Schundler was telling the Senate under oath that the governor lost the federal funding because of a vendetta against the state’s leading teachers union. And as Schundler’s testimony was reaching toward its third hour in a Statehouse committee room, the governor’s office sent out a news alert, summoning reporters for an announcement. The topic was not specified, but it was quickly learned that Christie was killing the ARC tunnel.

Christie denied he timed his announcement to steal Schundler’s thunder, but political observers said it couldn’t have been mere coincidence since less than 24 hours earlier the governor had said he didn’t know when he would have enough information to make his decision.

At first, aides to Ray LaHood, the nation’s Secretary of Transportation, wanted to attack Christie for this short-sighted decision, but LaHood went with diplomacy instead. The government believes that Christie’s claims of $5 billion in cost overruns are both wrong and intentionally misleading, but the two were able to work together to reach a detente. The feds would address some of Christie’s legitimate gripes with the project — its need for a new station deep under 34th St. that doesn’t offer a quick and easy to connection to Amtrak — and Christie would be open to their suggestions.

Still, the problem remains one of costs. “We have to work on the money,” Christie said as his meeting with LaHood ended, and the costs are still an issue. The governor still has the tunnel is “not financially viable” and would prefer to use that money — and not higher gas taxes — to save the state’s sinking Transportation Trust Fund. In this instance, though, killing two birds with one stone would be committing mobility murder.

So now, we wait. In ten days, Christie and LaHood will come together to determine the fate of a project the region needs and, with it, billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Still, I’m not going to hold my breath. This one feels a little less optimistic than it should.

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View from Underground

Building a better subway entrance

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 12, 2010

Four Turnstiles (1) by flickr user Infinite Jeff

Every day as I head into Manhattan and back home again, I have to navigate the southern entrance of the West 4th St. subway stop. Prior to February, the fare-control area was a madhouse. The two long walkways to the uptown and downtown platforms lead not to turnstiles but to an emergency exit on one side and a floor-to-ceiling fence on the other. It was a supreme waste of space and funneled people at the city’s 19th most popular station into a tight area.

Then, earlier this year, Transit rearranged the turnstiles. They added two turnstiles at the top of each exit ramp which allowed people to enter and exit the station without having to go out of the way and into that funnel of people. As Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said at the time, the changes “will provide better ingress and egress at the tops of the ramps, which currently doesn’t exist, thereby forcing customers to walk to the middle for both ingress and egress.”

After eight months, I can say conclusive that the changes almost work. Instead of seeing people crushed into an area with six turnstiles that lead directly to a wall, the two turnstiles on other end are used almost exclusively, and the ones in the middle are ignored. The changes have improved the flow of people only marginally because it has created a situation where people coming into the station and those coming out are jockeying for position at two turnstiles. It’s a swipe-eat-swipe world out there, and the person who dawdles while reaching for a MetroCard usually has to give way to someone charging out of the station. It isn’t an ideal set-up.

This past week, at CityRoom, The Times tackled subway improvements. Playing off of Transit’s renewed attention to its customers, the paper asked its readers to suggest ways in which the MTA could improve the customer experience. They ranged from the frequently discussed — eliminate the emergency exits — to the policy-oriented — require public elections for MTA Board positions — but one struck me as obvious. Said a reader with the initials JSL:

How about eliminating the two way turnstiles and subway entrances, and make them into one-way only entrances and one-way only exits (like in Paris)? Reduce the traffic jam created by people trying to go opposite directions on the staircases.

Another reader, Dennis DeMott, offered a similar suggestion:

How about something as simple as some pedestian traffic control at the busier/larger stations. A couple of signs or arrows painted on the floor so people keep to the right. Everyone is pretty used to things like barricades, up & down staircases and entrance/exit only turnstiles and most people will follow some simple rules if there are any in place. But there aren’t any! Right now it is a free for all.

It’s hard to find fault with these two ideas. Improving people flow is a key aspect to running a successful transit network, and the MTA doesn’t quite have this one under control. Riders block doors while straphangers waiting on platforms don’t allow those exiting to get off first. Heading up and down staircases can be treacherous as New Yorkers can’t seem to grasp the concept of walking on the right. Turnstiles move on a first-come, first-serve basis, and it isn’t unusual to see at a station with few turnstiles passengers trying to enter the system wait until the maddening crowd subsides before swiping in.

New Yorkers, the cliche goes, can’t be fenced in by rules and etiquette. We push forward no matter what. It might just be more pleasant for everyone though with a few one-way turnstiles and some suggestive arrows. If New Yorkers can be taught to move in an orderly fashion, a few turnstile bars to the gut might just be all the motivation we need.

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MTA Politics

Cuomo: We ‘need a total overhaul of the MTA’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 11, 2010

Barring a monumental upset, Andrew Cuomo, a native of Queens and a son of New York City, will be the state’s next governor, and he will be the second consecutive New York City Democratic to hold that spot. As such, the transit-minded among us might believe that Cuomo would have a good idea or a least a plan for the MTA. Yet, much like his opponent GOP candidate Carl Paladino, who wants to dismantle the MTA, Cuomo’s campaign has been light on substance and higher on the rhetoric.

Speaking to a reporter from The Observer after a rally last week, Cuomo issued a brief statement on the MTA. He said:

“I think you need a total overhaul of the MTA. You have to revisit the payroll tax. We’re going to have to figure out ways to make it more efficient and more economical, because we just can’t afford this anymore.”

For Cuomo, this is the first time he has gone on record to opine on matters relating to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. His 252-page Plan for Action for New York State mentions the MTA just twice, and nothing Cuomo says lends the belief that the Democratic nominee understands the MTA’s financial crisis and why it is of vital importance to the region to solve it. His comments last week aren’t comforting either.

On the one hand, Cuomo isn’t wrong. The MTA must be more efficient and economical because we the state of New York and we the city of New York can’t afford it. We can’t afford to see transit fail, and we can’t afford to pump billions into a system that bleeds money. That is a foregone conclusion.

Yet, Cuomo’s belief that the MTA needs a total overhaul seems misguided. To me, a total overhaul suggests removing the people in charge and replacing them with someone else. Yet, right now, Jay Walder, the MTA CEO and Chair, just one year into the job, should not be dismissed. Handed a sinking ship, Walder has tried to right it by cutting $730 million from its annual budget and bringing technological innovations to the system at the same time. He’s making headway with cost savings and with modernization while trying to work, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, with the various labor unions that make up the MTA’s workforce. As the third Chair in four years, Walder should be allowed to ride out this storm and see the job through.

The final part of Cuomo’s statement — revisiting the payroll tax — should leave transit supporters wary as well. The payroll tax wasn’t an ideal solution, and it’s left suburban counties both disgruntled and looking for legal recourse. But the man in charge in Albany must support it. Right now, the MTA is relying on the payroll tax for $1.5 billion next year and nearly $2 billion annually by 2015. If Cuomo is going to reevaluate the payroll tax, he must find a way to replace that money in the MTA’s budget or else the authority will fail.

Cuomo might be right; the MTA needs an overhaul. But it shouldn’t be one that cuts of the MTA’s nose just to spite its face.

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Buses

M15 SBS Day 1: The dichotomy of press coverage

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 11, 2010

Whether they like it or not, the city’s major newspapers are a loud voice working either for or against transit in New York City. The overwhelmingly vast majority of New Yorkers don’t receive their transportation missives from me or Streetsblog. Rather, they turn to the pages of their favorite newspapers to find out the latest goings-on above and below ground.

Yesterday, the MTA and NYC DOT’s Select Bus Service debuted along the route of the M15. With longer buses, pre-board fare payment, dedicated lanes and fewer stops, the First and Second Ave. SBS, while a far cry from true bus rapid transit, should drastically speed up bus service along the underserved East Side. As with any new service, implementation won’t be easy, and those operating the buses will have to work out the kinks as travelers adjust to the changes. The media coverage could either focus on Day 1 growing pains or the promises of speed. Let’s see what the papers chose.

The Daily News’ coverage was, by and large, the most positive. Erin Durkin wrote about the improvements Select Bus Service will bring to the East Side. She writes about how buses should be 20 percent faster, how dedicated lanes will improve reliability and how signal prioritizing will make for a smoother ride. It’s a bare-bones article, but it gets the news out there. The free daily amNew York had a similarly brief item.

The article in The Times though seems to strive for a balance of news and reaction, but the reaction is only from the negative side. From the headline — which focuses on “Glitches and Grumbles” — to the analysis, Michael Grynbaum’s look at Day One of the Select Bus Service sounds skeptical. “Progress,” the article says, “particularly in the transportation realm, can have its fits and starts.” As Aaron Naparstek noted on Twitter, these fits and starts are “unlike, say, manned space flight or healthcare reform where major new initiatives are rolled out with immediate success.”

On the first day, as regular commuters were greeted by pre-boarding fare payment requirements and receipts serving as proof of payment, DOT workers and MTA bus drivers took the time to explain the new system, but those riding viewed that not as a public service but as an inconvenience. “It’s going to wreak havoc now with people not knowing,” Laurie Barnett said. “This is definitely slowing things down.”

Metro’s Carly Baldwin similarly highlighted those who dislike change to their commutes. “There’s no way this is going to work,” Nina Zoota said. “The way you get on is just a mess. You have to get an extra little piece of paper, it will go much less smoothly.” Joan Krieg added, “This is needlessly complicated! Thanks, MTA!”

In Grynbaum’s article, the second paragraph levies the strangest criticism toward whoever instituted this crazy new bus service. “When the system made its Manhattan debut on Sunday along First and Second Avenues, one of the city’s most congested corridors,” it says, “riders up and down the route displayed the telltale frowns of New Yorkers convinced that their government had wronged them yet again.” Considering the government is trying to right the wrongs of a painfully and often uselessly slow bus service, that’s an odd conclusion to draw from just one day of a new service.

But of course, it’s all about change. It’s about change to routines, change to commuting patterns and change to an old system. As Aaron Naparstek said, “There is absolutely nothing newsworthy about NYers frowning over a major change to their routine.” Whether the papers say so or not, Select Bus Service will be better than the local service it is replacing, and one day soon, the people who use it will find that they like it.

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