Second Ave. Sagas

Category: Asides

  • Event Tomorrow: ‘Problem Solvers’ tackles bike share

    After two successful events earlier this spring at the Transit Museum, I’ll be hosting one more Problem Solvers Q-and-A tomorrow evening before taking a little break for the summer. My guest this week will be Caroline Samponaro, Transportation Alternatives’ Director of Bicycle Advocacy, and she and I will be discussing bike share as public transit. We’ll delve into the ins and outs of the city’s upcoming bike share system and talk about how it can complement and be integrated into the existing public transit network. (For a sneak peek, check out this post I wrote on the topic from May.)

    The event kicks off at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 13 at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn Heights and will run for about an hour. Please RSVP here if you plan to attend. Hope to see you there.

  • FASTRACK returns to the East Side tonight

    The MTA’s weeknight shutdown project, affectionately termed FASTRACK, returns this week to the East Side. For only the second time this year, service on the Lexington Ave. IRT south of 42nd St. will terminate at 10 p.m. each night this week, not to resume again until 5 a.m. the following morning. For a glimpse at this week’s map, mosey on over to this pdf.

    So what will change this week? There will be no 4 service between Grand Central and Atlantic Ave, and the 6 will terminate at Grand Central as 5 trains cease service in Manhattan earlier than usual. The 3 line is extended into Brooklyn and will make 4 train stops from Atlantic Ave. to New Lots Ave. at all times. The 5 train will run between E. 180th St. and Dyre Ave. all night while the 42nd St. shuttle will also run throughout the night. On average, the MTA says, this shutdown will add approximately 20 minutes to late-night subway rides.

    For Transit, this is the eighth FASTRACK treatment of the year with eight more to follow. After irking passengers in January with the first shutdowns, the MTA has been aggressive in promoting the work with a full-page ad appearing in today’s free daily newspapers. Still, the weeknight shutdowns are both disruptive and necessary as 10 p.m. has, a few times a year, become the new normal for the cessation of weeknight service.

  • ATU: MTA debt refinancing costing millions

    As the MTA is fond of pointing out how pension and health care benefits are directly responsible for the next fare hike, the unions have responded in turn with complaints about the MTA’s debt refinancing structure. In a report [pdf] issued by the ATU, the labor union alleges that interest rate swaps executed from 1996 through the mid-2000s is costing the MTA over $100 million annually.

    The MTA disputes these findings. “To compare transactions we entered into years ago, compared to what you can get in risky variable rate debt right now is either irresponsible or deliberately misleading,” MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg said to WNYC. “They are simply wrong.”

    Economists, meanwhile, have urged the MTA to renegotiate with the banks much as they have had to do so with their other contractors. Parrot also noted that the MTA is about to go to market to sell billions in new bonds to refinance its capital construction program. “They could say to the banks, ‘If you’re unwilling to renegotiate these credit swaps, we’re not so sure you’re going to get a piece of these bonds,’” economist James Parrot said. The MTA claims such a move is impossible due to the MTA’s reliance on the banks, which may be the problem in the first place.

  • MTA, cops ramping up fare enforcement on Staten Island

    As the MTA has vowed time and again to make every dollar count, fare-jumpers have earned headlines. Numerous reports of bus riders boarding in the back and straphangers hopping turnstiles have created some bad press, and while I think the problem is overblown from an economic standpoint, the MTA has been forced to respond from a public relations standpoint. To that end, the authority has ramped up enforcement on Staten Island buses.

    As NY1’s Tina Redwine reports, undercover officers have started to target particularly vulnerable buses, and their efforts have led to the arrests of 50 New Yorkers who opted against paying. Some of those arrests, of course, lead to the discover of other outstanding matters, and Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan has vowed to put fare-jumpers through the legal process.

    Meanwhile, bus drivers say they’ve noticed a difference. “The word is getting around and it’s calming things down now,” Frank Green said to NY1. “It’s the best thing that ever happened to Staten Island, I’ll tell you really, for me and the passengers.”

  • L train set for service bump

    Back in October, the L train made some headlines when the MTA promised service increases. With communications-based train control on tap, Transit knew it could respond to complaints of overcrowding once the technology is ready, and in October, the agency issued a 14-month timeline. Things, it seems, are moving quickly.

    As Newsday reports today, the MTA will roll out massive service improvements along the L this weekend. “The MTA will add nearly 100 trains each week along the L line starting Sunday, providing much-needed service for the route, which has seen sardine-like conditions for more than a decade,” Marc Beja reports. “Starting this weekend, 16 additional round trips will run each weekday, 11 more will go on Saturdays and another seven on Sundays, an MTA spokesman said.”

    The service increase will cost around $1.7 million annually and should help significantly alleviate the L train’s crush capacity problems. “This is not going to be the silver bullet, but this is real good news for L train riders,” State Senator Daniel Squadron, who has long fought for more frequent L service, said. “Anyone tired of the crushing crowds and overflowing trains will now have an L train trip less likely to feel like hell.” I’m not sure what other silver bullet Squadron wants, and this will be welcome news for L riders.

  • Event: ‘Problem Solvers’ at the Transit Museum

    After two successful events earlier this spring at the Transit Museum, I’ll be hosting one more Problem Solvers Q-and-A next week before taking a little break for the summer. My guest this time around will be Caroline Samponaro, Transportation Alternatives’ Director of Bicycle Advocacy, and she and I will be discussing bike share as public transit. We’ll delve into the ins and outs of the city’s upcoming bike share system and talk about how it can complement and be integrated into the existing public transit network.

    The event kicks off at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 13 at the Transit Museum in Brooklyn Heights and will run for about an hour. Please RSVP here if you plan to attend. Hope to see you there.

  • Lhota: Pensions, health care costs fueling fare hike

    As the TWU and MTA continue to operate without a contract, authority chairman Joseph Lhota took aim at benefits costs yesterday during a hearing with the New York State Senate Transportation Committee. As Pete Donohue recounts, Lhota noted that these costs are “spiral[ling] out of control.” He said, “In fact, but for mandated increases in pension and health care costs, we would not need the 2013 fare increase,” Lhota said.

    In response, TWU President John Samuelsen blamed the MTA’s “mismanagement of construction projects,” but mismanagement here isn’t the right word. Perhaps mis-funding is as debt costs have increased the MTA’s operations obligations to the detriment of investment in subway service. Either way the fares are going up 7.5 percent next year.

    The truth of course is in the middle. The MTA has turned into an organization funding pension and health care costs for retired workers for years, and these obligations have exerted a tremendous pressure on the operating budget. No one in Albany seems to willing to confront this issue however and the costs continue to mount.

  • MTA Website: 7 line extension in revenue service in 2014

    When last we checked in on the 7 line extension, MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu had warned of a potential delay to mid-2014. Due to some extenuating circumstances, he expected the one-stop, $2.1 billion extension to be in the testing phase by December 2013, but it would not hit revenue service until June of 2014. The MTA’s project website seems to bear him out.

    A small update to the 7 line extension site reveals the delay: The MTA now says “revenue service to begin June 2014.” There is a small amount of irony involved here too as the 7 line was Mayor Bloomberg’s pet subway project. The city is footing the bill for it, but now Bloomberg won’t be mayor for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Still, Horodniceanu earlier this year said Bloomberg “will ride a train” to the Hudson Yards.

    I’ll see what I can find out about the delays. The MTA did not get into specifics back in January, but perhaps if the six-month wait is official, word will come of a cause.

  • At least one part of East Side Access ahead of schedule

    Every now and then, an MTA press release tickles my funny bone. Earlier this week, eight days after announcing that the East Side Access project would not open until August of 2019, the authority trumpeted its progress. A part of East Side Access is ahead of schedule! Rejoice!

    The news concerned some tunneling. Boring for the third of four East Side Access tunnels wrapped up after just nine weeks — seven weeks earlier than planned. The machine, nicknamed TESS, dug for 2200 feet and installed 441 precast, segmented concrete rings as it excavated 875,169 cubic feet of soft soil. “The completion of this tunnel is another reminder that we continue to make tangible and significant progress on this project every day,” Dr. Michael Horodniceanu, President of MTA Capital Construction, said of a project that still has seven years to go.

    At least MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota offered up some measure of perspective on this saga. “Each piece of the project that we bring in ahead of schedule means we can dedicate resources to those parts of the project that most need attention,” he said.

  • Pet Peeve: The public playing of personal music

    For those New Yorkers — straphangers and street-walkers alike — boomboxes were once the scourge of New York. Despite nostalgic Times pieces heralding their 1980s impact, the boombox meant music pervaded public space in ways it just shouldn’t. With the advent of the Walkman, personalized music delivered via headphone became the norm, but lately, a new trend has me thinking about the boombox again.

    That trend, of course, is a public airing of music. As the Walkman begat the iPod and headphones grew smaller, they also grew leakier. Nowadays, no subway ride is complete without the tinny sounds of someone else’s music filling the air. Today, though, I got to experience the ultimate in subway annoyances. Now that most smartphones have the capacity to play music, people are starting to leave their headphones at home. Using the built-in speaker, selfish riders play their songs into the general atmosphere of the subway. Today, for 30 minutes on my way to work, I got a free listening of some classic Michael Jackson tunes.

    Amongst the door-blockers, pole-huggers and leg-spreaders, it’s tough to find someone more disrespectful and more infuriating that the public music player. It shows a certain selfishness and disregard for public spaces that has become a hallmark of the New York City subway over the decades. No one misses that era of the boombox for just that reason, and having it return in the form of a smartphone speaker is an unwelcome development indeed.