MTA Absurdity

Marcos Crespo has some zany ideas for subway safety.

By and large, the subways are a rather efficient and relatively quick means of transportation around New York City. A 24-stop ride from Forest Hills to Canal St. on the R takes 47 minutes; a 19-stop trip on the Q from Coney Island to DeKalb takes around 33 minutes; and a 27-stop jaunt from Wakefield/241st St. to Times Square runs around 50 minutes.

What would happen, though, to New Yorkers, to the city’s productivity, to their patience with the subway if the MTA were forced to add another minute per station to everyone’s commute? Suddenly, it would take almost an hour and 20 minutes to go from the Bronx to Midtown, and an end-to-end run on the 2, a 61-stop trip that normally takes 90-100 minutes, would run for over two and a half hours. It would take over 70 minutes to go from Forest Hills to Chinatown, and a trip within the same borough from Downtown Brooklyn to Coney Island would last nearly 50 minutes.

That is the worst-case scenario that could come to pass if Marcos Crespo gets his way. As I reported yesterday morning, Crespo has submitted a bill to the State Assembly that would over-legislate a non-existent safety issue. Since 0.000006 percent of subway riders are struck by train cars, Crespo would like the other 1.6 billion riders to pay the price. His bill would mandate that trains stop completely outside the station so the driver can inspect the tracks to make sure no one is in them. Then, the trains would creep into the station at 5 miles per hour before coming to a complete stop.

In expressing my incredulity at this dumb idea yesterday, I wondered if Crespo even knows what he’s talking about. After all, in the memo attached to the bill, Crespo claims the conductor would be the one to inspect the tracks, but the conductor sits in the middle of the train set. The Assembly rep should be calling for the driver to perform the visual inspection, and while I may be splitting hairs, a legislative mistake could lead to a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s just sloppy work.

Meanwhile, as commenters on this site noted, Crespo’s bill would do more than just slow down commutes to unbearable speeds. One comment highlighted how taking the rapid out of transit would reduce tunnel capacity. “The signal system is designed under the assumption that trains will generally be moving at speed, except when stopped at a station,” Andrew wrote. “Violating that assumption comes at an extreme cost to capacity – my guess is on the order of 10-15 tph. So not only will the trains be slower, but they will be much, much more crowded, since they won’t be able to run as frequently.” Brilliant!

Gothamist, in their coverage of the story, touched base with the Assemblyman, and he seemed both defensive and on the backpedal. He repeated his statistically insignificant claims of injury and defended his bill. “Over the last three years there have been an average of 60 deaths and hundreds of injuries because of trains,” he said. “I’ve taken the subway, I know how they operate. They come into stations full speed and I’m concerned about that.”

That an Assembly representative from the Bronx must state that he’s taken the subway speaks volumes of Albany. Still, as criticism rolled in, he attempted to distance himself from the idea. “This is a conversation starter,” he said. “If coming to a full stop is too much, I’m willing to address the issue.”

The problem with Crespo’s approach is that he’s picking on an issue that isn’t. If a manufacturer had a safety record akin to the MTA’s train-on-person numbers, they’d get a gold star from OSHA. If cars were anywhere close to that safe, the city would not be embroiled in a debate over how better to protect pedestrians. In fact, in 2009, there were over 75,000 car accidents in the five boroughs alone, and the accident rate was 1642 per 100,000 licensed drivers. Conversely, injuries caused by subway cars reached just 6 per 100 million straphangers. That certainly puts Crespo’s misguided legislation in perspective.

Ultimately, though, this move isn’t anything we don’t expect from Albany. We have legislators who rob from transit funds and others who never deign to ride the subway. Seeing another bad idea for the city’s public transportation network emerge from Albany is neither a surprise nor unexpected, and that is a sad commentary on the state of New York politics.

Handing policymakers numbers without contextualizing them often leads to Very, Very Bad Ideas from policymakers. For instance, if I told someone that 90 people were struck by subway trains in 2009, that person might be surprised. After all, 90 seems like a good number, and the 40 people who died from the impact represent tragic deaths indeed.

But what if I said 0.000006 percent of all subway riders were struck by trains in 2009? Would your response be to propose a measure that would add 20 minutes to a trip from Coney Island to Midtown? Or 12 minutes for those who ride the D from the Bronx to Herald Square? As Pete Donohue explores in his column today, that’s what one Assembly representative has done.

Dononhue writes of this Very, Very Bad Idea:

Commuting by rickshaw would be faster than the subway under a Bronx assemblyman’s proposal to increase straphanger safety.

Before entering each and every station on the line, a train would have to come to a complete halt just shy of the platform. Only after a required pause could the train move forward to pick up passengers. The maximum permitted speed when entering would be 5 mph.

The regulation by Democratic Assemblyman Marcos Crespo – introduced in the Legislature last week – would achieve its goal: preventing people from getting hit by arriving trains.

The bill — labeled A04796 in the Assembly — is available here, and Crespo’s justifications defy logic. He seems to think that 155 injuries over three years as well as liability of between $30-$60 million a year is rationale enough for this move. Crespo wants trains to come to a complete stop while drivers — he says conductors, but the drivers would do it — inspect the tracks for people before moving ahead very slowly. The cost in lost productivity due to slower commutes alone would wipe out the savings in human life and liability payments.

Donohue believes that Crespo’s “heart is in the right place” and claims that personal accidents are “harsh realities of the subway that are either routinely ignored or quickly dismissed as unavoidable.” From the perspective of the personal, perhaps Donohue is on target, but the numbers don’t support this sentimentality. Exceedingly few people are struck by subway trains every year, and even fewer die from those accidents. In a traditional model of economic efficiency, It’s not worth robbing the subway of speed to save a handful of lives.

Where Donohue hits the nail on the head though is in his attacks against those who slammed the MTA for requesting information about platforms doors. Crespo claims that it is “unlikely the MTA will incur that expense” of installing the new technology. He seemingly ignores the MTA’s proposal that someone else foot the bill for the platform doors and doesn’t know or pay attention to the difference between the authority’s operating and capital budgets.

As I noted a few weeks ago, critics who blasted the MTA’s Request for Information were barking up the wrong tree. Donohue, who notes that at least one company — Crown Infrastructure — is interested in the MTA’s proposal, agrees. “You would think” based on the reaction, he says, “subway executives had expressed an interest in building a space shuttle from the sharp criticism that emerged.”

Citing the high cost of fires caused by track debris and the safety benefits, Donohue says the authority “should test platform doors in a pilot program and not be rattled by critics.” I have no qualms with that claim, but we should not overstate platform dangers either. One train may hit one person every four days on average, but that represents one six-millionth of one percent of all subway riders. The city would suffer tremendous were slower subways the price the other 99.999994 percent would bear in the name of false security.

Platform screen doors aren't as crazy an idea as politicians and newspaper columnists think.

When the Daily News got wind of the MTA’s Request for Information concerning the possibility of installing glass doors on subway platforms, it seemed like a harmless news story. The authority wasn’t planning on committing resources to the project any time soon, and the RFI, generally the first stage in a long procurement process, made it clear that the MTA wanted any potential contractor to install the doors at as little cost as possible to the authority. The reaction though has been stupefyingly loud.

The first person to sound off on the idea was State Senator Diane Savino, and she was unamused. Noting that only .00005 percent of subway riders wind up on the tracks, she criticized the MTA for even thinking about it. Transportation Nation excerpted her statement:

“Much to my surprise the MTA found the notion intriguing. To even contemplate this nonsense is self-evidently a waste of time, effort, energy and yes – money; money the MTA does not have. The cost to install the barriers would be astronomical. The cost to maintain the doors in good operating condition would be even higher,” Savino said.

“Last year eight express bus and eight local bus routes where eliminated or reduced from my district along with the M train downtown extension into Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights, restoration of those routes should be the first discussion instead of spending additional monies on some harebrained notion like this,”

How dare the MTA try to solicit ideas for better service! It’s as though Savino isn’t trying. She clearly didn’t read the Request for Information because had she done so, she would have seen the authority’s intent to spend few dollars on this program.

Savino also doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the MTA’s operating budget and capital budget. The two are funded separately, and money from one cannot be easily shifted from the other. Still, she harps on last year’s operating cuts. “Life is precious and track fires are dangerous,” she said, “but the risks of both are far too minuscule to justify all the expense and effort — especially when most South Brooklynites and Islanders have had their modes of commuting eliminated under auspices of fiscal restraint.”

Of course, what Savino fails to mention is her own role in the cuts. She is leading a splinter group of Senate Democrats who support repealing the payroll tax, and she has consistently voted against congestion pricing measures. She did vote for the measure that robbed $143 million of allegedly dedicated funds from the MTA before saying that she never bothered to read the bill. She has also supported an unnecessary and costly no-layoffs bill. In other words, if the easy political points are there for the grabbing, she’s happy to take them.

But Savino isn’t the only one sounding off. The Daily News’ own editorial page yesterday featured two columns on it, and neither of them were written to sound as though the authors had read the paper’s own news coverage. First, we have an unsigned editorial calling the MTA “crazy” for even considering an “overblown plan” to build doors on the platform. I wonder how many times the Daily News has called someone crazy for asking for information or conducting a due diligence examination.

The editorial, clearly written at the urging of Savino, hits upon the same points she used in her letter to MTA Chair and CEO Jay Walder and even used most of the same language:

Some brainiacs have come up with the idea of erecting barriers along the edges of subway platforms to keep people from falling over. Said barriers would be equipped with sliding portals that would open and close in unison with subway doors,

Stop laughing. We’re not kidding. No, sir. We know this is no joke because the Metropolitan Transportation Authority found the notion intriguing enough to ask other brainiacs to submit even better proposals for adding a touch of Disney World to New York’s underground lair.

Merely to contemplate this nonsense is self-evidently a waste of time and money. The cost to install the barriers would be astronomical. The cost to maintain the doors in good operating condition would be even higher.

The Daily News editorial staff, experts in construction and maintenance costs of underground technological projects has deemed just thinking about it a “self-evident” waste of time and money. If they’re just going to serve as Diane Savino’s uncritical lapdogs, maybe we should appoint them to the MTA Board to see how they run things.

Finally, Joanna Molloy, who has an opinion about everything but seems to know little, sounds off on the project. While noting that CEMUSA paid $1.4 billion to install thousands of bus shelters throughout the city, she scoffs at the idea that the MTA could get the doors built for little or no cost seemingly without offering a reason why. But her crowning moment comes in the condemnation of the plan itself. She doesn’t want it because it’s not gritty enough for her. The logic is dumbfounding.

Sure, you can argue that the sleek, modern doors, which have worked so beautifully along the AirTrain, will save a few dozen lives – and spare the city from some pricey lawsuits. But we’re New Yorkers – we’re tough, and we like grunge and noise. It may be fine for San Francisco, where BART travelers politely form perpendicular lines at the exact spot at which they know the train door will stop. It’s just not us.

New Yorkers have true grit, and nothing gives grittier grit than the subway. We like to brag about the horrors we’ve seen down there. I once saw a 14-inch-long rat munch the last dregs of a hot dog on the tracks of Union Square station. Top that.

Got that? We don’t want clean subway systems that aren’t sweltering saunas in the subway because we’re New Yorkers and we like living and commuting in our own filth. Let’s not try to improve the system or enjoy pleasant commutes because then we wouldn’t be tough. We, like Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers’ latest, have true grit. On what planet does Joanna Molloy live anyway?

Now, I don’t know what the future will hold for the MTA’s idea to install doors on some or all of its platforms. In an early incarnation, the new Second Ave. Subway stops were to have these doors, but the authority won’t release SAS station specs for a little while yet. Maybe the MTA can find a contractor like CEMUSA willing to build the doors in exchange for the ad space, and maybe not. Maybe the Request for Information will lead to some results, and maybe the MTA will find that it’s not a feasible project for the New York City subway system.

No matter the outcome, the discourse around it is terrible. The MTA gets ridiculed for engaging in a no-cost effort to find out how to improve the system from politicians who clearly aren’t attuned to the mechanisms that fund the agency and from newspaper editorials that can’t see beyond the current filthy state of our system. This reaction creates a loop in which the MTA gains no public support or trust even as it’s trying to move the system forward, and now, we know why politicians get away with taking dedicated funds out of the MTA’s coffers.

Ultimately, this whole vicious cycle is why we don’t have nice things underground. A no-cost request for basic information to improve conditions underground just should not be met with such ignorant vehemence until dollar figures are attached to a specific proposal. Until the coverage improves and politicians understand what’s happening in transit globally and with the MTA locally, the loop will just keep circling back on itself forever.

MTA crews worked earlier this week to dig out snowed-in subway tracks. (Photo courtesy of MTA)

As Thursday dawned, subway service throughout New York City had finally returned to normal. Snow drifts that had built up in the outdoor trenches of the Sea Beach and Brighton Lines in Brooklyn were cleared; station platforms were shoveled; and entrances finally salted. Bus service remains detoured as surface streets are still chock full of snow, but getting around town can proceed apace.

Yet, the fallout from this week’s snow-inspired disaster is continuing and will do so for the foreseeable future. Both The Daily News and The Times investigated the city’s and the MTA’s responses to the blizzard, and these reports jibe with what I’ve heard from other sources. Essentially, because of a worse-than-expected storm and a push to keep overtime costs low, the MTA was not prepared for the snow. The results were disastrous for the city and its transit network.

The story begins early last week when, as The Times notes, the National Weather Service issued a winter storm outlook on Tuesday. As it’s December, few reacted with urgency, and by Friday, snow predictions were holding at six inches. Late on Christmas afternoon, the weather service issued a winter storm warning, and the city was slow to react. “As of about 5 p.m. on Christmas Day, the forecast called for about a foot of accumulation, which is not uncommon and which is not a basis for a snow emergency declaration,” Seth Solomonow, a DOT spokesman, said. I can see how this story unfolded simply by looking out the window at the sidewalks and streets below.

At the MTA, the agency was similarly slow to react. The Times reports:

On Friday morning, top managers at New York City Transit gathered for a ritual that occurs every weekday from November through April: to make a decision, based on weather forecasts, about whether to put in place precautionary measures in the case of a winter storm.

The managers can choose from one of four plans, prescribed each year in a telephone-book-size manual that lays out, in 300 pages of excruciating detail, the exact process for keeping the nation’s largest public transportation system functioning in the event of inclement weather. Plan 1, the lowest level of preparation, takes effect when the temperature drops below 30 degrees; Plan 4, the full-press emergency response, is activated when at least five inches of snow is expected.

By that morning, the Weather Service had been warning of a significant winter storm starting on Sunday afternoon. But at 11 a.m., the managers issued a proclamation of Plan 1. Officials, who had been tracking the storm since Wednesday, believed that the city would be spared the brunt of the storm.

The decision would have far-reaching consequences: because of a quirk in the transit agency’s system, the plan chosen on Friday stays in effect all weekend. And the agency would not officially make the switch to Plan 4 until 11 a.m. on Sunday, when snow was already building up on the streets.

Because the agency had opted for the modest response, several important aspects of rescue operations and disaster preparedness — diesel trains and other heavy machinery, like trains that blow snow off tracks or spray antifreeze on the third rail — were not automatically deployed.

On Sunday afternoon, the agency tried to institute its Plan 4 protocols, but by then, it was too late. Buses had been dispatched and were finding roads impassable. Due to very strong winds and high snow drifts, at-grade subway routes were felled by snow. Passengers were trapped on subway trains miles away from their destinations and with winds gusting past 40 miles per hour outside. “I’m appalled,” one Transit manager said to The Daily News. “I’ve never seen us fall apart this way.”

In the aftermath of the 2007 rain storm that left the system flooded and the MTA’s website offline for much of the day, the authority instituted new communications protocols and rebuilt its air grates along flood-prone areas. Until Sunday, it hadn’t suffered a major weather-related outage in over 41 months.

This week, though, the snow shut down the city’s transportation lifeblood. As it became impossible to drive on the city’s surface streets, the subways shut down as well. It was the perfect storm with an imperfect response ahead of time, and the MTA, working hard to keep overtime as low as possible, wasn’t ready to take an expensive plunge at the end of the year to keep subways running better than they did.

Walder has promised to investigate why. “In the coming weeks, we will reflect and look to make improvements for the future,” he wrote to his staff. Heads will probably roll, and policies will change. They have to; after all, the response to this storm couldn’t be any worse, and odds are good that it won’t be the last big snow of the winter.

In-station signs, but not a change to the map, announce the new name at the former Broadway/Nassau station.

When the MTA renamed the system’s 32nd most popular stop and combined it with the 286th to create the new Jay St./MetroTech station, they hosted a ceremonial ribbon-cutting replete with reporters, video cameras and local politicians. When the authority renamed a platform at the system’s tenth most busiest station, they hung up a sign. Today, as maps and announcements remain a jumble of old and new, confusion rules the day for straphangers bound for both Fulton St. in Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.

The confusion, says Theresa Juva of amNew York, came about because the MTA “stealthily renamed” the Fulton St. station. “If you are tourist and you are looking on your map for Broadway-Nassau after Chambers Street and you don’t see it — you’re going to Brooklyn,” Andrew Albert, head of the NYC Transit Riders Council and non-voting MTA Board member, said to her.

Juva attended the Riders Council meeting last week during which members bemoaned the change, and she spoke with council members and MTA officials who explained the confusion:

Riders council members fumed at a meeting Thursday that the MTA changed the station name without public notice and hasn’t changed subway maps. Council member Trudy Mason complained that the maps should have been changed before the holidays. “Tourism is one of the biggest industries in New York, and people are traveling and they don’t know where they are going,” she said…

An MTA spokesman said the agency changing the name to Fulton Street to help riders having the same name for all sections of the hub, which includes six lines. The change was made as part of the $1.4 billion Fulton Street Transit Center project, spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. “Having a single, common station name for all platforms in the complex would simplify passenger way finding and travel directions and reduce passenger confusion,” he said.

He added that new maps are being printed and conductors are clarifying for passengers.

The current map still features old station names.

The problem is one I’ve harped on quite a bit this year: It’s a customer service issue, and it’s easy to see how people could be confused. First, the map on hand in stations doesn’t have a mention of the new station names, and while conductors have been told to announce the changes, the FIND displays haven’t been updated yet. Meanwhile, the online subway map hasn’t been updated while route maps for the A, C, F and R have been changed.

If you’re trying to find your way around, the problem is just as bad. The MTA’s own Trip Planner has been updated, but a user inserting directions into the widget on the authority’s home page will be redirected to Google Maps where the station names haven’t yet been updated. Someone unfamiliar with the system looking for Nassau St. could end up on the G train at Nassau Ave. or on the A until they realize their mistake.

Ultimately, this confusion strikes at the heart of the purpose of a station name. I know where to go and what new station names are, as do most readers of Second Ave. Sagas. But for those who are in town for the first time and relying on the subway, a switch-over can be challenging. If anything, the MTA should have printed new maps before the name changes went into effect so that the maps were ready for users last week. For now, it’s a confusion of tourists.

Of course, some New Yorkers couldn’t care less what the stations are actually called. As Jason Kutch said to amNew York, “I still call it Broadway-Nassau. I was born and raised here. I know where I’m going.” Not everyone does though, and that’s the problem.

I’ll let you decide if this one belongs in the “New York politicians will complain about anything” category, but listen: Even though it’s illegal to move between subway cars, one New York City Council member is calling upon the MTA to unlock the end doors on all subway cars. After fielding complaints from constituents supposedly trapped in subway cars as fights between teenagers broke out, Letitia James has put forth a resolution demanding the MTA unlock the doors on all 75-foot train cars. “They had nowhere to escape,” James said of her fearful constituents. “Riders need a place to run to safety, and right now there’s no way to do that.”

James’ legislation, numbered Res 0582-2010, has the support of five other council members and reads without much force behind it and seems to rely on circular logic. It reads, in part:

Whereas, The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) enacted a rule in 2005, which states that “No person may use the end doors of a subway car to pass from one subway car to another except in an emergency or when directed to do so by an Authority conductor or a New York City police officer;” and
Whereas, This rule was enacted in order to ensure the safety of subway riders, especially during a time when the threat of terrorism has significantly heightened; and

Whereas, The MTA also claims that these doors are locked to prevent passenger injuries or fatalities as a result of falling between subway cars, however, passenger injuries or fatalities are extremely rare according to the New York Times; and

Whereas, The MTA New York City Transit website states that most subway accidents result from slips, trips, and falls on stairways when someone is in a rush; and

Whereas, Although the MTA made the decision to lock the end doors of a subway car for the purpose of protecting the public, locking these doors might serve as a detriment to public safety because passengers would not be able to escape in the event of an emergency or any other potentially dangerous situation in which one’s safety might be threatened, especially during non-rush hours; and

Whereas, Passengers, particularly women, fear being trapped in a locked car with a suspicious individual that may pose a threat to them; and

Whereas, When passengers believe that they are left with no option other than to ride a train and wait for it arrive at the next station stop before they can exit a car in which they feel vulnerable, the policy of locking the end doors of a subway car should be reconsidered.

Ultimately, the City Council, if it approves this bill, would “call upon” the MTA to unlock the doors because they find it “imperative” for the authority to do so in the name of safety.

In a short statement to The Post, Transit spokesman Charles Seaton defended locking the doors. “When these trains negotiate curves or travel over switches, large gaps are created between the cars’ end, creating an extremely hazardous situation,” he said. It is, essentially, safety on one end vs. safety on the other, and it strikes me here that James is overreacting to one concern without heeding the other.

The above image comes via Curbed and Gothamist. It is a composite photo of two signs that were, as of yesterday, hanging up at the 14th St. subway station at 6th Ave. Apparently, replacing a bunch of stickers has become a challenge.

This station, as avid readers will know, has been in the news for the better part of a month now. In mid-June, as New York City Transit prepped for service changes, the agency accidentally displayed an Internet meme on the new FML signs. A day later, the less vulgar LFM took its turn atop the signs, but not all of them have been properly stickered.

Gothamist’s Katie Sokoler found the poorly labeled signs yesterday. She discussed them for the news site: “One is a sign on the L platform that leads you to the L, M, M train. And the other is on the stairs and directs you to the L, F, L train. Which makes it more confusing is that those are the stairs that lead you to the 1,2,3 train. So not only is the sign wrong because it says L,F,L but it’s wrong because it should actually be 1,2,3. There were tons of people that were confused and kept walking up and down the stairs trying to figure out which train is where.”

For now, I’m just being LOL at the MTA while SMH. One day, these signs will be right. One day, the trains might even run on time.

We had a good chuckle on Tuesday when the FML Internet meme popped up on Transit’s new subway signs. Predicted as a possibility in late March, with the M destined for 6th Ave., the BMT/IND connection at 14th St. became a hotbed of humor (and some inappropriately self-righteous outrage) for a day before the MTA quenched the blog-fueled fire. They would, said Transit officials, change the signs as soon as they can.

And so, via SAS reader Robert C. comes visual proof that the MTA did indeed follow through on their promise. Nothing, it seems, inspires actions quite the threat of some inadvertent profanities in the subway system. Anyway, all’s well that ends well, and without further ado, the before-and-after: