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Dissent at the TWU as Toussaint reemerges

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 14, 2012

As the MTA and TWU amble their way toward some sort of settlement over their current contract dispute, dissent may be brewing from within the Local 100 ranks. As Ted Mann of The Wall Street Journal reports today, Roger Toussaint, the erstwhile leader of the city’s TWU local and the man responsible for the 2005 transit strike, is back on the scene, and he has been aggressive in targeting John Samuelsen’s current approach to negotiations. “The issue is not if they have the [money],” Toussaint said to The Journal. “It’s about getting it from them. And you have to have a real strategy to do that. You can’t just make it up as you go along and hope that no one notices.”

After losing an election to Samuelsen in 2009, Toussaint had faded from the scene, and in fact, he had moved down to D.C. for a few years. Within the past few months, when Samuelsen refused to threaten a strike, Toussaint moved back to Brooklyn to resume his track-shop job with the MTA, and many believe he is angling for a spot atop the leadership structure at Local 100. Toussaint in his interview with Mann slams Samuelsen for his approach toward negotiation. He wants a hardline, and he wants the MTA leadership to hear that even as they continue to threaten a net-zero wage increase.

For his part, Samuelsen shrugged off Toussaint’s words and presence. “Roger couldn’t mobilize 20 members to do anything after the 2005 strike,” Samuelsen said. “He couldn’t mobilize a bunch of kindergarten kids to get online to get cookies and milk, and yet he finds fit to criticize our mobilization in the last year.” Still, the former president’s militant tone, in light of the TWU’s embrace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, must have current TWU leadership watching their political backs.

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AsidesMTA Absurdity

Once more unto the garbage cans

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 1, 2012

As Transit tries to make its garbage collection problem go away, news coverage of the effort has found a comfortable narrative: The debate focuses around rider behavior and Transit services. As a forum on Thursday, Transit president Thomas Prendergast said the trash can-free pilot has been a success. MTA workers have found the stations without trash cleaner while the MTA hasn’t had to deal with as much trash.

Yet despite this early success, riders aren’t happy even as they’re complying with the new rules. “They’re are a lot of people that think it’s backwards and that it’s not what we should do. So, we haven’t been able to change their mind from a perceptual standpoint. But from a behavioral standpoint, we have,” Prendergast said.

Perhaps, then, these riders have taken their cues from rider advocates. Speaking at the same forum, Straphangers Campaign head Gene Russianoff explained how he feels trash cans are a no-brainer. “It’s a service to your customers to give them a waste paper basket,” he said. Should the MTA be able to provide both garbage cans and subway service for its passengers? As I wrote a few weeks ago, it’s a question that reaches the fundamental core of the MTA’s role. Likely they should be able to offer both, but customers seem to respect the station environment more if there are no trash cans. If I have to pick one, I’m opting for a cleaner station with no trash cans over a dirtier station with such a can.

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AsidesMTA Politics

Link: On Lhota’s first 100 days

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 27, 2012

It’s hard to believe how quickly 100 days can go by, but that’s the time that’s passed since Joseph Lhota took over the reins at the MTA from Jay Walder. Despite a delayed confirmation hearing that didn’t see Lhota officially assuming the mantle of CEO and Chairman until January, the new head has been in place since mid-November when he served as the agency’s executive director. Today, Dana Rubinstein at Capital New York looks back on those first 100 days and walks away impressed.

“To sum up,” she writes, “Lhota was installed by a governor who doesn’t much care about transit to straighten out the finances and public image of an authority that is a political pinata, all while keeping the trains running on time. Perhaps surprisingly, under these circumstances, Joe Lhota’s first 100 days have been fairly calm. And perhaps more surprisingly, transit people seem to like the job he’s doing.”

While Rubinstein makes the mistake of crediting Lhota with FASTRACK — it was a Walder program that Lhota opted to push through — she highlights the good of his tenure so far: He’s reached out to the TWU, and he’s been a vocal critic of the current MTA funding structure. He recognizes that the MTA cannot survive without the revenue from the payroll tax and has called upon the state to find a more sustainable way to fund transit.

I believe Rubinstein’s take is the right one: Lhota has had a solid first 100 days. Amidst doubts concerning his credentials, he has established himself as a very credible MTA leader. Still, he has his work cut out for him. The TWU still has yet to agree to a contract, and the MTA must continue to push for future expansion plans while shoring up its internal bureaucracy and funding structure. Hopefully, though, Lhota is here to stay as some stability atop the MTA would be a welcome change from the revolving door through which we’ve lived over the past five years.

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AsidesView from Underground

Subway-related deaths account for 7% of NYC suicides

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 24, 2012

While New York City’s suicide rate is nearly half the national average, seven percent of New York suicides come via subway-related deaths, according to a report from the City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The report notes that around 475 New York City residents take their own lives annually, and based on numbers from 2006-2007, around 33 of those deaths come via subway accidents. TWU officials tell me that in 2011, 54 New Yorkers committed suicide in the subway with another 36 people suffering serious injuries. Men are far more likely to attempt suicide via subway than women.

The reaction to those who attempt a subway suicide has always been mixed amongst straphangers. Any suicide is disruptive to many people’s lives and often a cry for help. But a subway suicide multiplies that impact. The person driving a train that causes another’s death has to live with the accident, and subway riders who are trying to get to their destinations can be delayed for hours. It is, some say, the most selfish way for someone to take his or her own life.

To help prevent suicides and otherwise address crisis intervention, the city runs a hotline at 1-800-LIFENET and has more information available on its website.

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AsidesFulton Street

At Fulton Street, just 28 months until completion

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 21, 2012

Making the rounds today are some new old renderings from the Fulton St. Transit Center that came packaged as part of a presentation from the MTA to Community Board 1 last week. You can check out the renderings in my October post, here via DNA Info or in raw form in the presentation PDF right here. The renderings and construction photos are fun to view, but the real news is in the timeline.

According to the MTA documents, the end of the construction effort is finally in sight. After years of missed deadlines and rising budgets, the MTA says construction is still slated to wrap in June of 2014, just over 28 months from now. A detailed glimpse at the timeline, though, reveals that most work will be completed before the end of 2012.

As the chart on page 45 of the presentation shows, the MTA will complete the rehab of the 4/5 station and ready the new Dey St. entrance by the end of July. In November, the Dey Street concourse is set to open as well the escalator to John St. By the end of the year, the Corbin building restoration and first floor retail storefronts will be ready. In 2013, the MTA’s major work will involve opening the A/C mezzanine by the end of March, and after that, it’s just a spring until the headhouse is ready in mid-2014. Even as there’s light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, I still question whether or not this project was truly worth the billions.

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AsidesMTA Technology

A few thoughts on countdown clocks and subway headways

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 21, 2012

Since the early fall, my commute has involved only IRT trains, and as I’ve written in the past, I find the countdown clocks to make waiting for the next subway a far less stressful experience. As all of my stations now have these clocks, I’ve also started focusing on what the wait times can tell us about subway headways, and I’ve often taken to Twitter to post my observations about train bunching. It seems to happen far more often than we would like.

Take, for instance, off-peak patterns on the 2 and 3. Oftentimes, I’ll see a long wait for a downtown 2 train and a much shorter wait for the 3 train right behind it. The wait times may average out to acceptable headways, but the reality of the situation is far more subtle. I witnessed another strange happening this past Saturday when three downtown 1 trains past within 5 minutes of each other at around 5:15 p.m. Accordingly to the MTA’s schedule, those trains should have been operating with eight minutes of headway rather than 100 seconds.

Some of this bunching may be unavoidable. Perhaps an earlier delay on the 1 line caused Saturday’s bunching, but the 2/3 bunching happens often enough that I wonder if it’s a scheduling issue. The 3 makes just one stop after leaving its terminal before joining up with the downtown 2 that the dispatcher should be able to avoid such bunching. I’ve noticed, however, that the late-night schedule features Manhattan-bound 2 and 4 trains running with similarly mistimed gaps in Brooklyn.

One day, I hope the MTA releases the wealth of data currently being collected by the underlying technology supporting the PA/CIS system. It would provide a glimpse of how trains are running with what spacing as they make their journeys to their ultimate destinations. Perhaps we’d see bunching, and perhaps too we would be able to isolate why bunching happens by discovering which trains are experience high dwell times. For now, though, we just suffer through mystifying and frustrated bunching as the countdown clocks tick down the minutes until the next two trains arrive.

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AsidesSelf Promotion

Saturday service on a holiday Monday

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 20, 2012

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, as today is a federal holiday, I’m not posting any new content. Subway service is running on a Saturday schedule, and some of the service advisories leftover from the weekend are in place through 5 a.m. tomorrow. I did however want to take a minute to remind you of all the great places you can find more Second Ave. Sagas. I’m active on Twitter and maintain a Facebook page as well. So give me a follow and get more subway commentary all across the Internet.

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AsidesMTA Absurdity

For $650, bring a subway bench home

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 17, 2012

Now that the MTA has made public its plans to replace its wooden station benches with metal ones, the authority must also figure out how best to dispose of the old wooden ones. As these benches will be considered surplus materials, they will, reports The Daily News, be available for sale for $650 each. “Get set to enjoy the ambiance of the New York City transit system,” Mike Zacchea, Transit’s assistant chief operations officer, said.

According to Zacchea, the MTA has pursued this path with its benches in the past. A few years ago, when the authority replaced some of the more weather-beaten wooden seats, they sold them for around $600 each, and this time around, these will be priced at $650, bed bugs not included. “They’re sort of iconic,” Zacchea said. “They’ve been around a long time. They’re massive. I can see them sitting in a back yard being weathered for a couple more years and serving as a conversation piece.”

If any of you plan to buy one, please take a photo of this “iconic” bench at its new home. I’d love to see how an interior decorator approaches this one.

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AsidesBuses

NICE BUS, $7.3 million in the red, already threatening service cuts

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 16, 2012

When Veolia took over operations of Long Island Bus from the MTA, the company never made explicit promises to maintain service levels or the fare structure. Now, just a few months into their tenure, the company has announced proposed service cuts totaling $7.2 million set for April. “A budget shortfall makes service changes necessary, although the changes are significantly less than those proposed by the MTA last year, involve no route cancellations, and are designed to impact the fewest possible passengers,” the company said in a statement.

Clearly, Veolia is a bit touchy about these service cuts. In the statement, they claim that they have realized $35 million in operating efficiencies and that the cuts are only a portion of the $26 million in eliminations proposed by the MTA. Of course, that MTA proposal was designed as a ploy to call Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano’s bluff. The MTA simply wanted Nassau County to be upholding its end of the funding agreement.

So how is Veolia planning on these “reductions and reconfigurations”? They offered up this take: “Our proposed system re-design is the result of a very careful analysis of how riders use the system. We rode every route and every stop, seven days a week, recording actual passenger usage and travel patterns. After a rigorous analysis, we focused on making the smartest changes that would impact the fewest passengers. Naturally, we focused on the routes that are least used by customers and are thus the most expensive to operate.”

Essentially, then, Veolia is doing what the MTA threatened to do. Since Mangano cut county contributions to the bus system from $9 to $2.5 million, NICE BUS is essentially placing that funding cut on the backs of its riders. Perhaps the are operating at greater efficiencies than the MTA. Perhaps the MTA was bluffing about a $26 million cut to force Mangano’s hand. Either way, Long Islanders are no better off now as their county leadership continues to withdraw funding for transit.

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AsidesNew Jersey Transit

NJ Transit riders still dissatisfied with rail service

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 16, 2012

Toward the end of last year, New Jersey Transit released its first quarterly customer assessment report, and the results were not good. Overall, the agency drew in a 5.3 on the customer satisfaction scale with rail scoring even lower. Now, the next quarter results are available, and the pictures looks even bleaker.

As the survey shows, customer satisfaction with New Jersey Transit is now down to 5.1. Only 55 percent of rail travelers say they would recommend the service to a friend, and perception of on-time performance is lagging as well. NJ Transit, however, noted that its own on-time rail performance was at a very respectable 94.9 percent. Other complaints focused around dissatisfaction with communication during service disruptions — a challenge transit agencies everywhere must face — and issues surrounding frequency of weekend service.

So what’s going on here? One article on the survey speculates that riders remember only the bad trips and the myriad problem-free rides. The long delays stick out and cause headaches, and New Jersey Transit should get credit for improving its on-time record and upgrading its rolling stock. Furthermore, the agency won’t be raising fares this year. Still, without added cross-Hudson capacity, the commuter rail network will never be able to achieve its potential, and its customers seem to recognize as much.

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