Second Ave. Sagas

Category: MTA Absurdity

  • In need of dough? How about delinquent bus fares?

    So the MTA may need some money for that whole Second Ave. subway thing. Maybe they should start enforcing bus fare collection.

    According to reports released on Monday, bus fare hopping is becoming a growing problem in the City. The Post tracked down some delinquent bus riders and interviewed their drivers on Monday.

    Grandparents, baby boomers and even mothers with carriages are becoming the city’s new scofflaws by using the rear exit doors on buses to get a free E-ZPass aboard. “It’s out of control!” said one 44-year-old Brooklyn driver who operates the B41 bus along Flatbush Avenue…

    The Post recently saw dozens of kid-toting, shopping-bag-carrying folks aggressively hopping onto crowded buses through rear doors at the busy Fordham Road and Webster Avenue stop – sometimes preventing passengers from getting off.

    One well-dressed, 57-year-old office worker and grandmother of two told The Post as she sneaked onto a bus that she does it because “everyone else is doing it.”

    So, grandma, if everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do that, too?

    The MTA had little information about the problem because they can’t really track the fares they don’t collect. The NYPD is in the same boat. While the police have stopped over 205,000 turnstile jumpers since 2005, the Boys in Blue have ticketed a whopping 21 people for ducking out on their bus fare.

    According to Transit Spokesman Charles Seaton, fare-cheaters are common at busy stops and on the long accordion buses where the driver doesn’t have a very good view of the back door.

    While any effort to ticket fare-jumpers on the bus system would probably cost more to implement than it would draw in, it’s just not cool to avoid paying for the bus. So don’t do it. Pay up, man. The MTA, after all, needs that money to build a new subway line.

  • In Their Own Words: The (fourth) Second Ave. groundbreaking ceremony

    Dignitaries head to a groundbreaking inside the tunnel for which ground was supposed to be broken. Or something like that. (Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times).

    So is it still a groundbreaking ceremony on the fourth try? Should we celebrate and pat ourselves in the back? Well, of course, we should! This is New York. This city lives on glitz and self-congratulatory ceremonies.

    In other news, today was the groundbreaking ceremony for the fourth attempt at building the Second Ave. subway. If you haven’t already read about this here, here, here or here, well, then all of this is new to you. (If you’ve already read about it, just pretend, ok? Make me feel good. And check back later for some pictures of planned station entrances.)

    So on a rainy Thursday morning, a veritable Who’s Who of New York politics marched their way downstairs to a tunnel that has sat largely abandoned for thirty years to kick off what should be the first successful attempt to build the Second Ave. subway. The politicians patted each other on their respective backs and promised Big Things to Come for the residents of the East Side who will, in MTA time, soon be enjoying a new subway line.

    The MTA bigwigs certainly were proud of themselves. “This time it’s for real. At long last, we will build the Second Avenue Subway,” said MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander. “Second Avenue is the most important mass transit project in the United States. It is critical to support the region’s economic growth and environmental health for the next generation.”

    “Today’s groundbreaking is a salute to the many people who have fought for the Second Avenue Subway over the years,” said at-some-point-outgoing MTA Chairman Peter S. Kalikow. “This day was hard to imagine ten or twenty years ago, but the start of this project highlights the rebirth of the region and the resilience of the great State and City of New York.”

    Never before have so many politicians said so much and yet so little. These quotations, as provided by the MTA’s press shop, illuminate the pageantry and shallowness behind a groundbreaking ceremony.

    (more…)

  • Second Ave. groundbreaking – live on TV – arrives. Again.

    How do you break ground when it’s already been broken? (Courtesy of The New York Times)

    I know. I know. We’ve beaten this topic to death lately. But hey, this is after all Second Ave. Sagas. I can’t just ignore the Groundbreaking as the ceremony is just a few hours away.

    So today’s the day. Part of me is surprised. I grew up in the City in an age when the subways were unsafe and dirty. No one dreamed of expanding the subways because New York didn’t even have the money to maintain their current maze of subway lines and stations.

    But by the time I was in high school, taking the 1 (or the now-defunct 9) back and forth to the Bronx ten times a week, times had changed for the New York City subways. They were graffiti-free and safe. While no one will ever mistake the subways for clean, their current level of grubbiness is indicative of widespread use and popularity. It’s hard to clean a system that never sleeps.

    In November, when I started this blog, I had a feeling that we would be seeing the Second Ave. subway sooner rather than later. While my dad — a lifelong New Yorker — will not accept the reality of this new subway line until he actually rides on it, guardedly, I can now say that we will have the long-awaited line running down Manhattan’s East Side. It’s not a line that runs from Brooklyn through Manhattan and up to the Bronx, but it’s a start.

    And we’re just getting started here. In the city that depends on the subway for so much of its transportation needs, not a day goes by without MTA news. So stick around for the ride. We’re in for the long haul.

    Meanwhile, if you’re interested in watching the fourth groundbreaking ceremony for the Second Ave. subway, you’re in luck; NY1 will carry the ceremony live at 10:30 a.m. today.

    “The groundbreaking for Second Avenue Subway is a historic moment in the life of New York City, and we’re thrilled that everyone will be able to see it live,” said MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot G. Sander. “I hope that many people will join us at MTA headquarters for this special day.”

    At some point, we’ll have to stop having ceremonies honoring a subway line that should have been built decades ago. But I’ll take it. It’s a much-needed sign of progressing for the albatross that’s been hanging around the subway’s neck since the 1930s. Next stop: 2nd Avenue.

  • Papers get nostaligic as groundbreaking nears

    This groundbreaking for the Second Ave. Subway took place in 1972. It was the first of what will be at least three such ceremonies for this ill-fated line. (Courtesy of Neal Boenzi/The New York Times)

    Thursday is fast approaching, and those of us eagerly expecting the Second Ave. Subway can rejoice for Thursday is Groundbreaking Day. Or the third groundbreaking day, if historical accuracy is your thing.

    So with this momentous day for the city’s subway system fast approaching, the newspapers are starting to get all nostalgic on us with retrospectives on the other groundbreaking ceremonies for the Second Ave. Subway line.

    The Times started things off today with a giant A1 article on the history of the line and the groundbreaking ceremonies. It’s a must-read if you want a succinct history of the Line That Almost Never Was. The best part is a tongue-in-cheek take on this week’s ceremony:

    Gov. Eliot Spitzer and a host of dignitaries will descend through a sidewalk hatch at Second Avenue and 102nd Street, a block south of the spot where Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and Mayor John V. Lindsay held a groundbreaking in October 1972. They will go into a never-used section of a three-decade old subway tunnel, stretching from 105th Street to 99th Street. The governor will give a speech, hoist a pickax and take a few cracks at the concrete wall, symbolically beginning the construction where it left off in the 1970s.

    As Times reporter William Neuman notes that the project may actually be completed this time, former Mayor Ed Koch shared the best quotation of the day. “I have no recollection of that day,” Koch said. “I do have a recollection that the Second Avenue subway — the first shovel went into the ground when God created the earth.”

    Over in the tabloids, The Daily News investigated the remnants of the first attempt at building this subway line. A five-hundred-yard stretch of tunnel from 99th to 105th Streets has lain dormant and forgotten since the early 1970s, but soon, it will again see life. As Pete Donohue wrote:

    All but forgotten for two decades, the 99th St. tunnel had fallen into disrepair in the early 1990s because of a lack of ventilation and water damage. The MTA has spent about $15million to rehab the tunnel and install ventilation systems.

    So as we look back with nostalgia on a project barely started and never completed, feelings of optimism are permeating the air. It’s an exciting time for subway buffs and transportation wonks.

    But don’t worry: Politicians will still be politicians. And as with any ceremony bathed in pomp, the people that don’t get invited will complain and make a big stink. New Yorkers wouldn’t have it any other way.

  • Glass walls for Second Ave. subway could keep passengers, air, trash in

    You can’t really make the train come faster by peering down the tracks if there’s a glass wall in the way, now, can you? (Courtesy of flickr user j&c)

    The Peer is a time-honored New York City subway tradition. As the train never shows up, frustrated would-be straphangers peer into the darkness of the tunnel for a glimpse – any glimpse – of the tell-tale signs of headlights from an approaching train. According to legend, peering into the tunnel actually makes the trains come faster as well.

    But the MTA wants to do away with the open tracks of the current subway system. Instead, they want the city subway’s to become AirTrain-like platforms encased in glass with sliding doors that will open when the trains arrive. William Neuman, The Times’ MTA reporter, has more:

    The doors, set into a wall of glass or metal, would create a floor-to-ceiling barrier, sealing off the track and tunnel area from the platforms and altering forever the daily experience of waiting passengers. Gone would be the rush of air and thunder, gone the visceral thrill as many tons of steel hurtle by at high speed, just inches away, all replaced by the hygienic interface of technology…

    The doors, he said, could allow substantial energy savings in the station cooling systems, which would use cold water to chill air blown into the stations and reduce temperatures by about 10 degrees. With open platforms, the hot air from the tunnels would mix with the cooled air in the stations. With doors on the platform edge, the heat from the tunnels would be at least partly blocked and the cooling system could operate more efficiently.

    Ernest Tollerson, the MTA’s policy director, talks a lot about the environmental benefits of these doors. Additionally, as The Times’ Empire Blog notes, the doors would prevent riders from rat-observing, trash-tossing and wallet-retrieving as well. (Of course, you wouldn’t be able to drop your wallet with the doors closed, but that’s besides the point.)

    On the surface, it seems like a good idea. Saving energy is a desirable goal and keeping the tracks clean is a benefit too. But all is not well.

    First, how long would it take for scratchiti to overtake these doors? Second, from what I’ve read so far in the Second Ave. Subway environmental impact statement, the trains may not all be the same length. Will they have doors spaced appropriately to accommodate both the 60-foot- and 75-foot-long cars? That sounds like an engineering nightmare to me.

    And how about that bugaboo of any MTA project, the cost? Mysore Nagaraja, the head of capital construction for the MTA, is tight-lipped about the dollars, saying the doors would just be added to the project’s total budget.

    But former MTA head Lawrence Reuter shared his views on the doors, and it’s not a favorable one. “I definitely discouraged it because it’s a cost item and it’s a maintenance item,” Reuter said. “It’s only going to apply in a few stations. What good is it going to do if you can’t adapt it to the rest of the system? I didn’t see any benefit, plus it’s going to cost extra money to maintain them.”

  • Once again, JFK raillink falls to the wayside

    img_5753.jpg

    The Plane to the Train arrives at JFK Airport during a run in late 1978. (Photo by Doug Grotjahn. Courtesy of NYCSubway.org)

    Lost to the years of history is the story of the Train to the Plane, the ill-fated JFK-Manhattan raillink. Lost even deeper in the annals of New York City transportation history is the tale of the Van Wyck Expressway and the potential to build a high-speed train connection from Manhattan to JFK Airport along the Van Wyck right-of-way at a minimal cost to the city.

    Let’s go back in time to the 1950s. As Robert Caro noted in The Power Broker, an excellent book I just finished, and as NYCRoads.com recaps here, for just $9 million in the early 1950s, the City could have purchased an addition 50 feet of right-of-way rights along what would become the Van Wyck Expressway. While the city at the time had no money to construct what would have been a direct raillink to the airport — and not just the station near the airport as Howard Beach is now — the land would have been a valuable investment.

    Instead, Robert Moses would have none of it. He did not want his projects altered one iota, especially for Mass Transit projects. As Caro notes, nine miles of preexisting IND subway track would have taken the trains to within three miles of what was then Idlewild airport. All the city’s transportation czar had to do was use a few million dollars that he had to bring the tracks up to the center of the expressway and straight to the airport. This train ride from Penn Station to JFK Airport would have taken all of 16 minutes. Tell that to someone sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Van Wyck as the minutes before an upcoming flight tick down.

    As we know, Moses did no such thing, and New Yorkers traveling to the airport now are paying the price. While some costs — time lost to traffic or an endless A train ride to the new JFK AirTrain — are tangible to commuters, the monetary costs are astronomical. What would have cost a few tens of millions of dollars of a few decades ago now may cost $6 billion — if it’s ever built, that is.

    Citylimits, a publication sponsored by the Center for an Urban Future, has more:

    [In February], the project got a shot in the arm when U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer announced $2 billion in tax credits – originally promised after the attacks but still unused – toward the estimated $6 billion price tag. He called the link a “once in a generation chance” to create “a big win for all of New York.” …

    But some transportation planners say the link being studied is neither the best solution for downtown nor the best use of taxpayer money. “If we already have such a good connection [to the airport] from Midtown, this doesn’t seem to be worth it,” said Kate Slevin, the associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, noting it currently takes 20 minutes to get from Penn Station to Jamaica – where passengers can take the AirTrain to JFK’s flight terminals – on the Long Island Railroad. “The problem is we have too many priorities in New York. We need to get out behind a couple of them and get them done.”

    And those priorities lie elsewhere, agreed Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign of the New York Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy group for subway riders.

    While Chuck Schumer says he has secured $2 billion of the estimated $6 billion, most transportation advocates don’t feel that the $6 billion is a real figure. Instead, it’s one that the powers-that-be have basically pulled out of the air.

    Meanwhile, even the MTA authorities admit that the JFK Raillink is hardly a priority. The Second Ave. Subway, Tappan Zee Bridge reconstruction/replacement project, the East Side-LIRR raillink and the 7 line extension are all big ticket items in front of the JFK link on the never-ending line of New York transportation priorities.

    Nowadays, we’re stuck with the replacement for the Train to the Plane, an IND express that got riders only as far as a Port Authority bus near JFK. We have instead the A train to the AirTrain. Or miles and miles of traffic jams. We are left with part of Robert Moses’ legacy of roads at all costs and no sight of compromise. It’s too bad; that raillink to JFK would be nice. Just don’t expect it soon. Or ever.

  • MTA entering the real estate biz for Second Ave. residents

    cardboardbox.jpg

    Hopefully, you won’t end up in that when the MTA can’t find you anything on Craigslist.

    So last summer, when I moved back home to NYC after a few months away, I had to go through the joys of finding affordable housing in a city in which the vacancy rate is less than 1 percent. Now, less than 1 percent of a few million is still a significant number, and it’s not impossible to find somewhere to live. Just try finding a rent controlled apartment.

    Ok, ok. Funny joke. Rent-controlled apartment. Ha ha ha. Stop laughing now because that’s just what the MTA has to do for those unfortunate souls living in the path of the Second Ave. subway. What makes this difficult task — finding affordable and comparable housing on the Upper East Side — even harder are the 60 rent-controlled apartments set to be demolished to make way for the new subway line. NY1’s transit reporter Bobby Cuza has more:

    That’s right, the MTA is going apartment-hunting, trying to score cheap housing on the Upper East Side, the idea being to hold the apartments, then eventually hand over the keys to residents being displaced by the Second Avenue Subway.

    “We are obligated to relocate most of these tenants – in fact all of the tenants,” said MTA Director of Real Estate Roco Krsulic. “We have to find them replacement housing. The rules are rather specific, that we have to find them comparable housing, and preferably in the same community board.”

    Well, as a veteran of this process, I must suggest that the MTA start looking here on Craigslist but beware those finders fees. Another good place is The Times’ Real Estate listings, and this time, look out for photos and places that seem too good to be true. It’s a trap.

    All joking aside, Krsulic’s department faces a daunting task. Metro’s coverage of this news was decidedly pessimistic. “Given the paucity of affordable housing in Manhattan, and especially on the Upper East Side, the Real Estate Department and our relocation consultants will be seeking potential replacement dwellings,” Krsulic said. “The possibility is we may not be able to find any.”

    And that spells doom for a smooth start to this long and arduous subway construction plan.

  • NYPD negotiating the fine line of subway ‘crime’

    You don’t want to go there. (Courtesy of flickr user Joshua S)

    Did you know that it is illegal to move in between subway cars unless instructed to do so? Did you know that the police will ticket you for this offense? Well, if you were a reader of mine on March 5, you knew that.

    But based on the number of search hits I get for people looking for information on subway summons, odds are you didn’t know that.

    Well, it’s true; the police can – and do – ticket straphangers who are moving between cars, and they are, Chuck Bennett reports, issuing more summonses this year than before.

    Transit cops are busting more subway predators on the prowl, leading to a 27 percent jump in the number of arrests this year.

    That’s because NYPD brass have ordered subway cops to crack down on quality of life offenses like walking between cars, smoking and jumping turnstiles. That sweep is leading police to more serious criminals, turning up weapons and people with outstanding warrants.

    According to NYPD figures, cops have given out 1953 summonses this year; each carry a fine of $75. That’s a quick way to collect $146,475.

    The MTA and the NYPD outlawed moving between cars in December of 2005, and last year, cops issued 3600 summonses. Through the first three months of 2007, subway riders are on pace to receive nearly 6000 tickets this year for what the MTA calls “outside riding.”

    So check your surroundings before moving in between cars. You never know who’s on the other side (or in plain clothes) waiting to slap you with a $75 ticket.

  • Say cheese!

    metro_camera.jpg Apparently, all those people seeing something and saying something just isn’t paying off for the MTA in their never-ending fight against the terrorists, and that non-stop barking dog at Penn Station isn’t too discerning. So now the MTA is going to watch you as you commute, read the paper and pick your nose to and from work each day on the subway.

    The MTA, you see, has plans to install digital security cameras in subways in an effort to watch your every move protect our city’s transit infrastructure from the Bad Guys. Already in use on the WMATA’s Metro cars in Washington, D.C., these cameras, according to Michael Lombardi, senior vice president for New York City Transit, can aid in criminal investigations and the aftermath of terrorist attacks. The Times has more:

    Lombardi…said the authority had asked Kawasaki and Alstom, the two companies that are producing the latest model of subway car, known as the R160, to propose ways to add security cameras to the cars. The request was made within the last two months.

    He said the authority would review the designs and ultimately seek to test them in a small number of cars, to see if the cameras would withstand the bumps, jolts, dust and stop-and-go conditions of the subway system. Mr. Lombardi said there was no timeline for the program, adding that any decision on the cameras would hinge in part on the cost.

    I would hope a digital camera attached to the ceiling of a subway and experiencing the same bumps and jolts as everyone else would be effective, but leave it up to the MTA to mess up security cameras. If Washington, D.C., hardly the model of expertise when it comes to rapid transit, can install and monitor security cameras, I have a sneaking suspicion that New York with its extensive network of closed-circuit cameras can find a way to make something work in the subway.

    “The goal is to examine where the technology is and whether it’s feasible to do it,” said Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit. “We’ve done that for buses, we’ve done that for stations. Now we have to do that for subway cars.” Hint: It’s feasible, Paul. It’s feasible.

    With 660 new cars for various subway lines on order and another 1040 on tap, NYCT would like to see the camera prototypes sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, NYCT plans to add cameras to 450 city buses, and they’ve already nixed the idea — because of the expenses and technology involved — of sending live images to a central rely station for 24-hour surveillance.

    I’m not too thrilled with the idea of someone spying on our every move on the subway, and I bet SUBWAYblogger won’t be too enamored of the idea either. You certainly won’t be able to nab that nifty ad after hours anymore without feeling a set of eyes on you. But, whether you know it or not, the city is constantly watching you. There are, in fact, 13 security cameras between the front of my office building and the middle elevator bank plus at least another eight on West 16th St. between 8th and 9th Avenues. So what’s another set of eyes catching us at our most vulnerable as we ride the subways each day?

    Image of WMATA security cameras in the D.C. subway from Outtacontext.

  • Subways remain unsecured in commuter rail security beef-up

    MetroNorth trains will now feature Air Marshall since the trains fly. (Courtesy of flickr user PlasmoNYC)

    First, I had to go Washington for some news about the subways, and now I’m venturing out to the ‘burbs. I’m not sure what’s worse. But either way, we’re talking about security today.

    Metro New York reports that air marshals will soon be patrolling MetroNorth, LIRR and Staten Island Railway trains in an effort to protect these so-called soft terrorist targets. Suburban commuters, like those riding the subways, will also be subjected to random bag searches. Staten Islanders were celebrating this announcement as this is the first time their borough has been referred to something as complimentary as a soft target for terrorists.

    The measures “will give our commuter railroads the kind of police presence our customers deserve and the post-9/11 environment requires,” said Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Lee Sander, who added the initiative began last week with step-on train inspections by MTA officers and the deployment of 50 dogs trained to locate explosives. “This partnership demonstrates our capacity to enhance safety and security by putting aside political and jurisdictional boundaries that often block collaboration, communication and the constant exchange of information.”

    The plan is permanent and is expected to cost the MTA up to $5 million per year in overtime costs, Sander said.

    Personally, I’m skeptical. The Feds are still spending $7 on air security to every 1.5 cents spent on rail security, and I just don’t see MetroNorth and the LIRR – let alone the Staten Island Railway – as viable or important targets.

    Meanwhile, as SUBWAYblogger noted yesterday, police in the subways will continue “pretending to do random screenings of bags.” I feel safer already.