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Without flashing blue lights, confusion over SBS buses

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 18, 2013

The MTA and DOT Select Bus Service initiative is a rather fragile and frail imitation of real bus rapid transit, and even a slight shift in the way the service is set up can have deep ramifications. When two Staten Island politicians more concerned with space for cars rather than the letter of the law raised a stink over SBS’ flashing lights, I figured turning off the blue indicators would have an impact on the service, and a recent article by Dana Rubinstein confirmed as much.

According to unnamed bus managers who oversee Select Bus Service, turning off the lights has resulted in slower buses that don’t move as quickly as they used to. “It’s really affecting the quality of service,” one said to Capital New York. The reasons are twofold: First, riders not accustomed to the system cannot easily distinguish between SBS buses and local buses, thus delaying boarding and travel times. Second, cars are not as quick to vacate supposed bus-only lanes as the blue lights no longer signal approaching vehicles.

In January, the MTA vowed to find another color for its flashing lights — one that wouldn’t violate state law — but results has been slow in coming. Recently, two City Council members have urged the agency to restore the flashing lights, but all the MTA has said is that they’re working on it. “We’re aware of customer concerns about being unable to distinguish between regular and SBS service, which is why we’re intently studying the best alternative to flashing blue lights,” MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said to Rubinstein. Only action though will speed up the buses again.

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AsidesLIRRMTA Absurdity

The Woodside Edition of ‘Great Moments in MTA Elevators’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 15, 2013

The MTA’s various elevators do not have the most sterling of reputations. The ones necessary to leave deep stations in Upper Manhattan and Clark St. are dismal and foreboding. Many of the newer ones smell bad, and they’re breaking down constantly. Sometimes, those two problems are related.

Enter the LIRR’s Woodside elevator. Earlier this week, LIRR President Helena Williams shared some gruesome details about this lift. Calling it a “vertical urinal,” Williams explained how this elevator is going to need to be replaced because too many people have peed in it. According to LIRR figures, the elevator was functional only 58 percent of the time last month, lowest in the system, and no one is too pleased to have to ride it.

Strangely enough, as DNA Info notes, the station complex has five other elevators that aren’t nearly as contaminated and public restrooms as well. Though, whether or not you’d actually want to use those restrooms is a very personal decision. But no matter the answer, please just stop peeing on the transit system’s escalators.

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AsidesBusesMTA Technology

BusTime to hit Manhattan next, citywide by mid 2014

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 13, 2013

The MTA’s goal of rolling out BusTime to all five boroughs by April of 2013 is a bit off schedule, the agency announced today. With all of the Bronx and Staten Island bus routes already equipped with the real-time bus location service and some Brooklyn routes enjoying it as well, Manhattan buses will soon follow suit. After Manhattan will come Brooklyn, followed by Queens before the end of next April. In other words, within 13 months, the city’s bus riders will be able to track every single bus then in service.

“Bus Time has proven extremely popular among bus riders on Staten Island and the Bronx – and I can tell you that because customers have come to me on buses in the Bronx and said we did a really great job on Bus Time,” Fernando Ferrer, MTA Acting Chairman, said in a statement. “They find it useful and easy to access, and I think that’s a tremendous endorsement of what we have been doing. Bus Time is so helpful to our customers that we have scheduled an extremely aggressive timetable to introduce it to three other boroughs.”

That extremely aggressive timetable is actually less aggressive than it was 17 months ago, but that doesn’t obscure the fact that BusTime will aid bus travelers. No longer will we stand frustratedly at bus shelters with no vehicle in sight, and the decision to grab a snack, walk or wait will be a much easier one to make. Absent real bus network improvements — dedicated rights of way, faster fare payment methods — the ubiquitous nature of BusTime should continue to stem the decline in bus ridership we’ve seen over the last few years. The debate, however, between BusTime’s location-based tracking and countdown clocks remains a hot topic.

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AsidesMTA Economics

Event Tonight: With Gene Russianoff, ‘Problem Solvers’ on the MTA’s budget

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 13, 2013

To most New Yorkers, the MTA’s budget is a thing of mystery. We’ve suffered through constant fare hikes and no corresponding increases in transit service. We’ve heard false tales of two sets of books repeated ad nauseam for nearly a decade. We hear about a capital budget, an operating budget and debt payments. And now the MTA is receiving another infusion of cash totaling billions of dollars for Sandy-related repairs. It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.

Tonight — Wednesday — at the Transit Museum, as part of my ongoing “Problem Solvers” series, Straphangers Campaign attorney Gene Russianoff and I will get to unpacking some of the complicated and convoluted details surrounding the MTA’s budget structure. We’ll look at who pays for transit in New York City and who should pay for transit. We’ll look at where the money comes from and where it goes. And we’ll explore just why the MTA needs to raise fares every two years and why the MTA’s budget is always so fragile.

The party gets started at 6:30 p.m., and doors to the Transit Museum in Brooklyn open at 6. RSVP here, and come with questions. Gene and I will take comments from the audience as part of the discussion as well. See you there.

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AsidesNew York City Transit

Portending more services outages for Sandy-related repairs

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 12, 2013

It is fitting that, after I wrote about subway delays this morning, the news of the afternoon concerns, well, even more subway delays. Despite the subway system’s quick rebound after Superstorm Sandy, all is not well underground. As we know, once saltwater gets inside of any piece of electronics, there’s no going back. No amount of cleaning will stop the erosion, and that’s what happening to Transit’s infrastructure.

As Jim O’Grady reports today at Transportation Nation, service disruptions will become the norm as the MTA races to spend the billions of dollars in storm aid it will soon have at its disposal. Over the next few years, the MTA will receive nearly $9 billion for both repairs and system hardening, and it must spend the money quickly or forfeit it. To that end, warned Transit President Thomas Prendergast expect delays, especially along those lines most hit by the storm surge.

As the MTA noted, a pair of recent signal problems in the Montague St. Tunnel could be blamed on salt water damage caused by Sandy’s flooding, and that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. “The subways have recorded more than 100 signal failures related to Sandy since service was restored after the storm, plus problems with switches, power cables and other infrastructure,” spokesperson Adam Lisberg said to WNYC. “Most of those failures happened in yards, but some were on mainline tracks and led to at least short service disruptions.” The disruptions will likely be concentrated in Lower Manhattan, the East River Tubes and parts of Williamsburg, but as with the storm itself, the ripple effects will be felt all over the city.

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AsidesSubway Maps

On the MTA’s subway map SNAFU

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 11, 2013

Over the weekend, an embarrassing story concerning a subway map error hit the pages of The New York Post. Alexander Hamilton’s paper reported that the MTA had to throw away a bunch of subway maps when an error in the fare information section came to light. The March 2013 maps stated that the minimum purchase for a MetroCard is $4.50 when, in fact, it is now $5. Oops.

Now, according to The Post, TWU sources estimated the damage to be about $250,000. I spoke to officials at the MTA today to get their side, and they tell a slightly different story. I’ve learned that the MTA is estimating the damage at no more than $75,000, and the money will come out of subsequent map printings this year. As the MTA’s map budget is fixed, however much the agency burned on this error simply means fewer copies of subsequent map releases later in the year.

Meanwhile, even without this embarrassing mistake, the March maps were going to be chucked anyway. The MTA had printed them before the decision to recommission South Ferry had been announced, and the reopening will necessitate a new map next month anyway. It’s a sloppy, careless mistake that makes the MTA look bad in the pages of The Post, but it’s also ultimately a rounding error for an agency with a $13 billion budget. It’s not a real issue, but it just goes to show how public perception — rightly or wrongly — is shaped by press coverage of the MTA’s follies and foibles. The old maps will be given to an MTA licensee who uses them for subway-themed handbags or will wind up on eBay for subway map collectors to snatch up.

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AsidesNew York City Transit

Ridership Update: 2012 a record year for subways

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 11, 2013

As a brief follow-up to my early post on 2012 ridership figures, the MTA announced the final tally for subway usage, and it’s a doozy. Total subway ridership hit 1.654 billion last year, the highest it’s been in 62 years, and the average weekend ridership matched the all-time historic high, set back in 1946. Furthermore, these records come amidst an estimated 43.8 million rides lost to Superstorm Sandy.

“Our ridership growth has been strongest among discretionary riders and during off-peak times,” Thomas F. Prendergast, MTA Interim Executive Director, said in a statement. “Recent trends, like the younger ‘millennial’ generation increasingly gravitating toward transit around the country, are building on older trends, like the introduction of unlimited cards and free transfers between subways and buses, to continue the long-term ridership growth over 20 years.”

It’s unclear how weekday ridership compares to historical averages, but it’s at or near record highs as well. Considering how pervasive automobile usage has become in society today, it speaks volumes of transit’s place in New York’s economy and daily life that ridership has continued to climb over the past twenty years. It’s also something to ponder how the system seemed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Moving forward requires a strong capital commitment, but it must happen.

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AsidesGateway Tunnel

At Hudson Yards, an Amtrak provision for Gateway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 7, 2013

Amtrak’s Gateway tunnel and its accompanying plans for high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor are no sure thing. The costs — estimated last year at $125 billion — are astronomical, and no funding is in place. Yet, the rail provider seems intent on delivering at least the Gateway Tunnel to improve train service through New York City, and with work beginning on the Hudson Yards development, it must act soon to preserve space.

To that end, Amtrak has unveiled plans to consruct a tunnel box in the Hudson Yards space for future tunneling. “The point is we need to protect this alignment,” Petra Todorovich Messick said earlier this week. “This is sort of the last viable connection to bring tunnels under the Hudson River and connect them directly to Penn Station.”

According to other reports, construction will start in the fall with Related Cos. taking the contracting lead. A federal grant of $150 million will pay for the placeholder starter tunnels. Overall, Gateway is estimated to cost $15 billion and could be ready for revenue service by 2025 if funding is put in place. It may still be a longshot, but it’s inching closer to reality. Saving the space now could go a long way toward pushing Gateway forward.

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AsidesPANYNJ

Some forward-thinking as PATH resumes 24/7 pre-Sandy service

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 28, 2013

Without much fanfare, the Port Authority has restored PATH train service to its pre-Sandy levels. Via a Tweet early Wednesday evening, the agency announced that weekend service to and from the World Trade Center and Exchange Place will commence this Friday. For Jersey City-bound travelers coming from points south in New York City, this announcement — unaccompanied by a press release — is a welcome one.

PATH’s service restoration comes nearly four months to do the day after we witnessed stunning video footage of water flooding through PATH’s system. Although the PA wasn’t nearly as transparent with its post-Sandy images or plans, we heard that water completely flooded the tunnel between Lower Manhattan and Exchange Place, and a subsequent escalator malfunction at Exchange Place was seemingly the result of such flooding. Four months and countless dollars later, PATH service — an oft-underlooked but key element of the region’s transit system — has been restored.

Yet, even with the good news, I am left wondering what now? The Port Authority hasn’t been too forthcoming with its plans, but now that service levels have been restored to pre-Sandy levels, the PA must placate concerns over future storms and future flooding. Will the agency invest in storm and flood mitigation efforts? Will the new $4 billion PATH hub in Lower Manhattan be protected from future storm surges? According to one report, Sandy cost PATH 18 months on that project, but subsequent denials cast doubt on that story. If those delays were due to hardening efforts, it would probably be a worthwhile one.

We cannot as a region afford to look this gift horse in the mouth. Outside of the Rockaways, South Ferry and New Jersey Transit’s inane treatment of its rolling stock, transit services were restored to pre-Sandy levels very quickly. But that doesn’t mean doing nothing is an adequate response today or for the future. Be it PATH, New Jersey Transit or the MTA, our transit agencies should be preparing for the next storm now and not three days before it’s due to hit.

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AsidesNew Jersey Transit

Great Moments in NJ Transit: It costs what to build a fence?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 27, 2013

Every now and then — or let’s be honest, rather regularly — stories come out about New Jersey Transit that remind us of just how inept the agency can be. Lately, seemingly everyone has escaped responsibility for leaving rolling stock in an area vulnerable to floods as a giant hurricane came in, and despite a $450 million repair bill, Gov. Chris Christie has yet to fire anyone in charge. But there’s more to New Jersey Transit’s problems than that.

On a smaller scale, even mundane stories are a cause for concern. Take, for instance, New Jersey Transit’s decision, after decades of ignoring the problem, to close up a shortcut. For decades, Manhattan-bound riders walking to the Teterboro station were faced with a tough choice: Walk a mile on Route 46, a dangerous road with no shoulder or sidewalks or cross the tracks, an otherwise illegal maneuver that NJ Transit had tacitly approved. That approval ended recently when the NJ Transit built a fence. Officials cited “safety” as the primary concern which is laughable if you consider the remaining access options. It might be “safer” for New Jersey Transit’s exposure to liability, but it’s not safer for the people walking to the train station.

We could debate the best way to solve this problem for a while. Maybe an underpass would work or an overpass, but for now, New Jersey Transit has gone with a fence. And just how much does this fence cost? According to the NorthJersey.com report, NJT will spend $100,000 to build a fence eight feet high and 300 feet long. One hundred thousand dollars. It blows the mind. According to a fencing cost estimate site, installing 300 linear feet of chain-link fence in Teterboro, New Jersey, should cost a little over $5000. Instead, New Jersey Transit is going to spend twenty times that amount. No wonder it’s impossible to have a rational discussion on expanding the region’s transit network.

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