Home Author
Author

Benjamin Kabak

AsidesSecond Avenue Subway

Second Ave. Subway spared from state-wide construction shutdown

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 1, 2010

When Gov. David Paterson earlier this week announced a construction freeze on all state projects if the New York legislature did not pass the budget on time, I feared for the future of the Second Ave. Subway. I knew Albany would not pass the budget before midnight on March 31, the legislatively-imposed deadline, and when April 1 dawned last night with no budget in place, it seemed as though Paterson’s shutdown would come to pass. So with New York heading toward financial difficulties and no firm budget plan in place, would this be the economic move that killed the Second Ave. Subway?

I posed this question to the MTA yesterday, and although construction in the 1970s halted due to a crushing economic crisis, this year, Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway will move ahead as planned. With the MTA relying heavily on federal funds, stimulus grants and money secured through bonds for this project, the state construction shutdown will have no impact on construction underneath Second Ave. With federal money as the engine driving this project forward, its looking more and more likely that, at the very least, Phase 1 of the SAS will open this decade, New York City history be damned.

9 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesView from Underground

Report: MTA’s new austerity plan literally a return to the 1970s

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 1, 2010

Clearly, this City Hall News story is an April Fool’s joke, but it’s a thorough one that serves as a commentary on the state of our public transit system. The inside-politics publication reports that the MTA will discard all R160s and instead bring back the R26. The cars will be covered in graffiti, and I’d imagine the Massimo Vignelli map will make a triumphant return.

As a obvious a joke as that report is, it made me reflect on the state of our subways. Two years ago on April Fool’s Day, I wrote about how the MTA had just announced plans to shutter the subway at night. It seemed just plausible enough to rope people in but not realistic enough for the MTA to implement it. Today, the MTA is facing a budget hole of $750 million and will be cutting service drastically this summer. The joke has become reality, and it doesn’t seem nearly as funny today as it did in 2008.

17 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Subway HistorySubway Maps

On a map, the history of the subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 1, 2010

A few months ago, this map landed in my inbox. For New York City subway history enthusiasts, it’s a fascinating document. As the excerpt above shows, it is a map of the system with historical annotations. Think of it as a visual timeline of New York City subway history. You’ll get lost in it for hours.

I’ll include the full map below for your perusal, and it comes with some accompanying text I’ll type out below. Basically, the excerpt offers up a simplified look at the political goings-on that led to the MTA and provides some insight into the now-defunct IRT/BMT/IND distinctions that I still use on Second Ave. Sagas.

Historical Map of the New York Subway

At the beginning of the 20th century, Manhattan had a large elevated system dating from 1870 run by the Manhattan Elevated RR Co., one branch of which reached inot the Bronx. Brooklyn had a large surface and elevated system operated by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co (BRT). Construction of the first subway began in 1900, and the Interborough Rapid Transit Co (IRT) commenced operation in 1904. The original route ran from City Hall to 145 St. via Grand Central and Times Square. The IRT also leased the Manhattan Elevated Co. The IRT system was extended into the Bronx and Brooklyn through 1908. Around this time, the question of municipal ownership became an issue. In 1909 a master plan for a separate city built system – the Triborough System – was proposed. This plan specified a larger load gauge than used on the IRT to allow interchange with main line railroad equipment. Although not adopted, the Triboro plan produced the two different size specifications which to this day prevents total interchangeability between lines.

Instead, the so called Dual Contracts system was employed to draw together the IRT and BRT. Construction of the dual system lines began in 1931- more than half the mileage being of elevated structure, embankment or open cut. Some elevated lines were reconstructions of older pre-dual contract els. The BRT went into receivership in 1918 which ended in 192 when it was renamed and reorganized as the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corp (BMT).

In 1924 control over sorely needed new routes was returned to the city with the establishment of a Board of Transportation. The City of New York became a subway operator in 1932 when the municipally built Independent system (IND) was opened.

Unification took place in 1940 when the BOT aquired the BMT and bankrupt IRT systems. Elimination of original el routes was commenced.

BOT control ended in 1953 with the creation of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA). The BMT and IND systems were merged in 1967 with the opening of the Chrystie St. connection in Manhattan. Control of the NYCTA passed to the new Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1968. Ex IRT lines were now known as the A Division and ex BMT/IND lines as B Dvision. The last pre-subway ‘el’ closed in 1973 with the end of the 3rd Avenue el Bronx service.

To view the entire map, click the image below. Be forewarned: The file is approximately 6 MB.

11 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesMoynihan Station

Empire State Development Corp. gives Moynihan the OK

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 31, 2010

Six weeks after the Moynihan Station projected earned an $83 million TIGER grant that will enable the city to build Phase I of the ambitious Penn Station expansion plan, New York’s Empire State Development Corporation has approved the amended General Project Plan. (View the amended Project Plan here.) The ESDC vote kicked off the public approval process, and the next major milestone will be a public hearing on Wednesday April 28 at the Farley Post Office, the future site of the project.

“Too many have waited too long for relief at Penn Station,” Robin Stout, Moynihan Station Development Corporation president said in a statement after the vote. “As we move through the public approval process, we will also be concluding our design and documentation so that Phase 1 construction can begin as soon as possible.”

As the Moynihan Station plan moves forward — with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill as the lead architects — the costs remain an issue. Phase I is a $267 million project that simply improves access to the current Penn Station by constructing more entrances and widening a few platforms. Phase II, which will turn the Farley Building into a rail hall, will cost between $1-$1.5 billion and has not yet received any funding commitments. Baby steps are better than no progress at all, but I’m not too optimistic that the Moynihan Station plan as it currently exists will see the light of day anytime soon.

20 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Subway Advertising

MTA rejects WFP service alert parody ads

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 31, 2010


A few weeks ago, the Working Families Party sent out an email about a planned ad campaign aimed at Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Using parodies of the MTA’s ubiquitous service advisory signs, the WFP wanted to bring attention to the fact that Bloomberg had made some lofty campaign promises concerning transit in New York City but had failed to live up to those promises so far. Using the subway bullets to take jabs at the Mayor, the WFP proclaimed “OMFG” and “WTF?”

When these ads hit my inbox, I had a feeling the MTA would reject them. They resembled the service advisories, and the MTA would allege that the signs would confuse riders into thinking the authority itself endorsed the views expressed by the WFP. It is unsurprising, then, to read today that the MTA has rejected these ads on exactly those grounds. The agency will forego between $25-$50,000 and may incur a First Amendment challenge. But the ads, they say, are obscene.

The Daily News’ Pete Donohue has more:

Transit officials rejected the spots because the acronyms imply obscene language that many riders may find “offensive, improper or in bad taste,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. The ads also look too much like the real thing, using subway-line logos to form the suggestive acronyms, according to the MTA. Some riders might believe they are real authority bulletins, officials said – or that the authority agrees with the political message.

The Working Families Party was looking to spend $25,000 to $50,000 for a four-week run in the transit system, party spokesman Bryan Collinsworth said. “We were really hoping to put some pressure on the mayor,” Collinsworth said. “We think he controls a central piece of the puzzle.”

…Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the campaign was simply off track, in part because the mayor speaks out daily about the need for more transit funding. “Their anger on this issue is misdirected,” LaVorgna said. “They should be directing their anger to the state, which has yet to come up with a successful funding source for the MTA. They should be talking to the entity that controls the MTA, which is the state and the state Legislature.”

Although LaVorgna is right in telling people to direct their ire toward state officials, Mayor Bloomberg has not tried to deliver on his

13 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
MetroCardSubway History

How the Unlimited MetroCard revolutionized transit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 31, 2010

When Tuesday dawned another cold, windy and rainy day, I pondered how New Yorkers ride the subway in those ugly conditions. On rainy days, the trains are damp and more crowded than usual. People who would otherwise walk or bike to their myriad destinations head underground for a ride free from rain.

Meanwhile, throughout the city, people running errands opt to duck underground as well. Instead of walking from, say, 50th St. to 40th St., the one-stop ride along the Sixth Ave. IND often calls out, and while 15 years ago, that ride would have cost $1.25, today, the Unlimited MetroCard urges you to take that one- or two-stop ride. Straphangers, in fact, get better deals on their weekly or monthly cards if they ride more frequently, and the MTA earns less per ride. In a way, it is a perverse incentive.

Today, the Unlimited MetroCard is a way of life. In January, over 50 percent of all non-student trips came from one of the four unlimited ride offerings. Yet, 12 years ago, few were aware of the looming debut of these cards that have changed the way we ride.

Gov. George Pataki first announced unlimited ride cards in early December 1997. Original plans called for a $63 30-day card, a $17 seven-day card and a $4 one-day fun pass. In a twist of history, the MTA could afford to offer these discount cards because of a surplus of tax revenue in 1997. The agency was expected to lose over $230 million on the per-ride discounts, and as riders today pay an inflation-adjusted fare that is 36 cents lower than the average fare was in 1996, this loss is still haunting the MTA today.

While the 30-day cards then — and still do today — require someone to ride at least 47 times to be a better deal than the pay-per-ride discounts, the new passes were designed to encourage use. Original MTA estimates projected 100 million more riders per year, an increase of six percent. ”The goal here,” Pataki said said to The Times, ”was very simply to empower the rider. Empower the person who takes the subway and the person who takes the bus by giving them the broadest possible range of options as to how they want to choose to use the mass transit system.”

When the unlimited cards debuted on July 4, 1998, they were an immediate hit. Even though plans for the one-day card were delayed, lines at the token booths snaked through stations, and New Yorkers were eager to take advantage of the potential savings. ”Maybe it would stop me from taking so many cabs,” one rider said at the time. ”It has to do with commitment. Once I’ve made that $17 investment up front, I see it as a free situation, rather than a $5 cab ride minus the dollar-and-a-half public transportation.”

The only down side riders could find was the original 18-minute use restriction. The unlimited ride cards could be used once system-wide every 18 minutes, and many straphangers taking short trips found themselves waiting for time to expire. Eventually, Transit agreed to reduce the limitations to their current form. Today, riders can swipe in at the same station only once every 18 minutes but can enter the system at other points before the time limit is up.

Immediately, the savings were apparent. As The Daily News noted, messenger services and frequent train riders were going to realize savings of hundreds of dollars annually. First day sales were very brisk and have continued to be for the past 12 years.

Today, the unlimited ride cards are still a great deal. As a student and frequent subway rider, my pay-per-ride cost off of the $89 monthly card is only just around $1.10 per ride. I can hop on and hop off the trains and buses as I please, and I don’t have to think twice about taking a trip we used to view as unnecessary 15 or 20 years ago. The Unlimited MetroCards changed the way we ride and interact with the system, and that was true transit innovation for New York City.

32 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesSubway History

The IRT on LSD

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 30, 2010

In the musical Hair, the Tribe sing a song called “Initials” in which LBJ takes the IRT to find a bunch of kids on LSD. It turns out that perhaps the kids weren’t the only ones on LSD. In an intriguing report published while I was on vacation for a few days earlier this month, The Post notes a new book book on the CIA that alleges LSD experiments in the subway. On two occasions in the early 1950s, FBI documents purport to say, the CIA planned to test the hallucinogen in the New York City subway. Supposed, the tests were carried out in November of 1950, but no one has ever confirmed the line or station that served as the intelligence agency’s guinea pig.

4 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Transit Labor

Did a union protest slow down Friday bus service?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 30, 2010

When the MTA Board voted to cut hundreds of unionized station agents, TWU President John Samuelsen vowed to fight the cuts. On Friday, according to one report, he and other TWU members may have begun that fight with a procedural move that slowed down bus service in Queens during the morning commute.

According to Pete Donohue of The Daily News, a series of spot inspections at the College Point bus depot led to 16 route cancellations and 64 delays of over an hour as Queens commuters waiting for the bus. Some union leaders claimed this move was simply for the security and safety of drivers and passengers while others said it was a strike at the MTA. Writes Donohue:

Before dawn at the College Point bus depot, union officers conducted spot inspections on buses heading to the only exit. Citing equipment defects, union officers and staff delayed 64 buses by more than an hour, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority confirmed. The scheduled runs of an additional 16 buses were canceled by managers because of the logjam, the MTA said. All told, about one-third of the depot’s available fleet was affected by what sources said was the biggest action of its kind in years….

[Samuelsen] maintained the equipment inspections were not connected to MTA plans to let go up to 500 token booth clerks and bus drivers later this year. “The union has an obligation to provide a safe workplace for our members and a safe bus for the riders, and by doing these inspections, we’re living up to our obligation,” Samuelsen said.

The union inspections Friday did reveal numerous defects in turn signals, wheelchair lifts and headlights, Samuelsen claimed. But a source familiar with the inspections acknowledged, “This is the union’s way of flexing its muscles.” Since January, the union has conducted several bus checks at other depots, according to the union. While it’s illegal for a union to intentionally slow service as a show of force, it can be difficult to prove.

These allegations remind me of my bus experiences on Saturday night. I rode the B71 — a route soon to be eliminated — from Park Slope to Carroll Gardens, and as my girlfriend and I prepared to exit the bus, we started chatting with the driver about the impending extinction of his bus. He started bemoaning the high salaries earned by those at the top of the MTA management chain and said that those people should take paycuts first. I didn’t want to start a debate by telling him that those managers are taking cuts and losing jobs while any remaining TWU employees will get to enjoy their raises this year. We had to get off the bus, and it wasn’t worth the fight.

Still, as the union may or may not be hitting back at the MTA, the truth remains that, until Albany finds a way to fund public transportation in New York City, everyone will feel the pain. Management will be reduced; union members will lose their jobs; passengers will see bus and subway service cut. Sometimes, we fall into a “union-vs.-management” framework, but as long as the MTA remains on the edge of financial ruin, everyone loses.

6 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesSubway Security

Could a station agent have prevented the 2 train stabbings?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 30, 2010

Unfortunately for the MTA, this Sunday’s 2 train stabbings led to a renewed focus on the authority’s plan to eliminate station agents. Although the actual murder took place aboard the 2 train in between 14th and Christopher Sts., some of the perps escaped via the southbound platform at Christopher St. while the others left at Houston, and both of those platforms are currently without station agents. Today, in the Daily News, Pete Donohue and Barry Paddock ask if station agents could have helped the solve the crime.

The answer to that question is both yes and no. As with the cameras I explored this morning, a station agent who happened to see the allegedly killers exit the station would have been able to provide a description to the police. Yet, we shouldn’t think that the station agent would have stopped this crime. The stabbings occurred on a train well out of sight from any MTA employee, and this seemingly heat-of-passion killing seems to have been nearly unavoidable. When we consider as well that station agents are not allowed to leave their booths, the best we could hope for is a more accurate description of the still-at-large killers. How to balance those surveillance needs with the MTA’s budgetary woes is a problem facing the authority right now.

3 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Subway Security

The benefits and limitations of subway security cameras

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 30, 2010

Over the last few months, we’ve heard a lot about the MTA’s efforts at securing its system. A ongoing lawsuit against Lockheed Martin has left the current state of subway security in disarray, and approximately half of the system’s 4300 cameras do not work properly. Had everything gone according to plan, by now, the entire subway system would have been outfitted with closed-circuit security cameras.

Generally, this halting attempt at installing cameras doesn’t impact the public. We’ll ride the trains no matter what and hope for the best. But this weekend, two stories highlight both the benefits and limitations of subway security cameras. The first happened right here in New York when a stabbing on Sunday morning left two riders dead and the cops on the hunt for a killer. The NYPD’s efforts have been slowed by the lack of adequate security measures underground.

As Ray Rivera and Michael Grynbaum write in The Times today, Christopher St. — the station through which the alleged perp escaped — has no cameras, and overall, the system’s video surveillance system “remains a patchwork of lifeless cameras, unequipped stations and problem-plagued wiring.”

MTA and New York City officials are aware of the system’s shortcomings. “This definitely should have been recorded on surveillance camera,” Norman Seabrook, head of the MTA’s security committee, said to The Times “Post-9/11, the terrorist bombings that just occurred in Moscow, the two murders that just occurred plus other incidents that continue to occur in the subway system, we cannot wait any longer to ensure the safety of the public.”

Yet, the Moscow bombings, despite Seabrook’s concern, highlight just how useless security cameras can be. During the Monday morning rush hour, two suicide bombers detonated explosives in the Moscow Metro. The bombers are suspected to be a part of some Northern Caucasus separatist groups, and the blasts raised fears through Russia and the rest of the world.

In New York, the NYPD rushed to “activate” a security plan, Reuters reported on Monday. Police details flooded the subway system, and squads were dispatched to major transit hubs around the city. Although there was no suspected link between America’s enemies and the Russian attackers, the city wanted to maintain a strong security footing. It was, MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said to amNew York, a “precaution.”

Yet, I wonder if this response is more an example of wishful thinking and the limitations we run up against in defending an open and porous subway system than it is of precaution. By dispatching police after the fact, it is as though security officials are trying to close the barn door after the horse escaped. As former NYPD commissioner Howard Safir said to Heather Haddon, “There are so many entrances, so many stations, so many people. It’s virtually impossible to guarantee that it won’t be vulnerable.”

So where then does that leave New Yorkers on a daily basis? On the one hand, a killer is still at large because he was able to slip out of an unsecured subway system after stabbing two or three men on a subway train car that is surveillance-free. On the other, we are aware of the security risks we face as we ride the trains and now that, while exceedingly rare, a terrorist attack underground can be a devastating and tragic event. As station agents vanish and security dollars languish, the MTA must do what it can to guard against both kinds of subway attacks.

7 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts