MTA Construction

Mysore Nagaraja, the head of MTA Capital Construction, has called it quits after two years, and the Daily News speculates that rising capital costs and frequent delays may be a motivating factor in his departure.

Pete Donohue has more:

The MTA official in charge of mega-construction projects, including the LIRR extension to Grand Central Terminal, is leaving – amid concerns about rising costs and delays.

Mysore Nagaraja, 65, president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Capital Construction Co., is departing at the end of the month to be a private-sector consultant, ending more than two decades with the authority. His knowledge is unsurpassed when it comes to the MTA’s most ambitious construction and system expansion plans, MTA board member Barry Feinstein said. “Losing Mysore is a significant loss.”

I have no intimate knowledge of the situation, and the MTA has yet to issue a release about Nagaraja’s departure. But it’s certainly true that capital projects across the board seem to take longer than expected to complete. Rising costs are as much related to the shaky economy than they are to the man in charge, but if Nagaraja or some institutional issues are causing project delays, a change at the top can sometimes kick start a sagging department.

The new South Ferry Terminal will address the inadequacies of the current station while providing a transfer point to the Whitehall Street station. (Courtesy of MTA Capital Construction)

Two capital construction stories from the weekend; two examples of the MTA’s apparent decision to address the issue of overwhelmingly oppressive heat in the subway systems. Finally.

The first was this so-called NY1 Bobby Cuza “exclusive” on the 7 line extension. In the story, aptly covered here by SUBWAYblogger, Cuza writes about the plans to enclose the new 7 line platforms in glass doors.

I’ve written about these glass doors before, and I’ll maintain my position. Those doors will not be worth the cost. While the MTA hopes to air condition these train platforms on the Far West Side, the doors will break or be broken by unruly riders. They will malfunction; they will be a general nuisance.

The good folks on Subchat have engaged in an epic discussion on these doors, and this post seems to summarize everyone’s feelings. “Utter waste of public money. Wait until they all break down and nobody can get into or out of the train,” board contributor Olog-Hai said.

The other story, also from Cuza, focused on the new South Ferry station. I’ve written little about this capital construction project simply because it’s fairly unremarkable. The $500 million station is funded through federal 9/11 funds; it’s on time; and it’s a much-needed upgrade. Of note is the news about the potential for the station to be climate controlled:

The new terminal will not only save riders an estimated two to five minutes on their trips, it will also be fully accessible, provide a connection to the R/W station at Whitehall Street, and pump cool air onto the platforms in the summer.

“It’s not 100 percent air-conditioned, but the temperature in the station will be at least about 10 to 15 degrees below the outside temperature,” [Mysore Nagaraja, head of MTA Capital Construction,] said.

In July, I noted that the MTA had opted to ignore the heat issue on these line report cards. But today, I’m glad to hear that the MTA is starting to address this issue. It’s always oppressively hot in the subway stations during the summer. While I think the glass doors represent poor solutions to this problem, I have to applaud the MTA for taking the initiative to address a problem that will only get worse as the temperature outside climbs.

MTA workers lay out the floor on the downtown IND platform at Columbus Circle. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak.)

It’s hard to find a station in worse shape right now than the Columbus Circle hub. The station — a key transfer point between the West Side IRT and the 8th Ave. and 6th Ave. lines — is in the middle of an extensive renovation that won’t end until 2009 at the earliest.

It’s not a stretch of the imagination to call the current state of the station is a huge disaster. Blue construction walls dot the station’s landscape, and platform sizes have become severely restricted as work crews attend to matters as large as asbestos abatement (West Side IRT) and floor reconstruction (IND platforms). While in April, I wrote an extensive post looking at the overall plans for the station, let’s take a peek, by way of some subtlely-taken Blackberry photos, of the current state of the station.

As I’m currently undergoing physical therapy at an office on 57th St. between Broadway and 8th Ave., I have the pleasure of navigating this station two days a week now. Progress is haphazard; one day, a staircase will be open, and the next day, it will be shut. One day, sections of the platform will be roped off; the next day, they’ll be open.

Mainly, what I’ve seen are crews working on the floors on the IND platforms. For months, the platforms have existed below grade with the trains. Warning signs urged straphangers to watch their steps. Now, the platforms are rising up, at least in the middle, to meet the train doors. Take a look:

After a thorough review, New York City Transit has released two reports about the deaths in April of track workers who were struck by trains. The reports were highly critical of the organizational culture of the track workers and blamed the deaths on safety standards that are ignored at work sites across the system.

The New York Times has more on the two reports:

The reports delivered a broad indictment of safety practices on the subway tracks, and called for discipline to be considered for three of the supervisors involved, along with a major overhaul of safety procedures.

In one of the accidents, a report said, workers carried heavy equipment across live tracks without covering the electrified third rail or setting up warning lights to alert oncoming trains. In the same accident, the report said, a supervisor assured the two workers he would act as a flagman, watching for trains, and then left his post. Moments later, one worker was dragged under a train and died, and another was seriously injured when he was pinned between the train and a wall.

Howard Roberts, president of New York City Transit, voiced his concerns about the approach to safety on the rails. “There are some major barriers, the primary one being cultural, that we have to figure out how to handle,” he said. “In many cases people do not follow the rules and consider the rules in some cases not to be particularly pertinent to how they see themselves as getting the work done.”

The more critical of the two reports examined Marvin Franklin’s death by the wheels of a G train at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. According to that report (PDF here), one of the work supervisors did not maintain his position as Franklin helped carry equipment over live tracks.

The other report (PDF here) noted that the work supervisors didn’t even know the proper safety procedures for ensuring that the tracks are cleared before sending workers across. In this incident, Daniel Boggs was killed by an 3 train on the downtown express tracks in Manhattan at a time when he thought there were no more express trains that night.

In all likelihood, the work supervisors will be disciplined, and the MTA has already instituted a whole slew of new safety measures. The MTA has issued new radios to work crews. They plan to enforce flagging of adjacent active tracks during work times. They are working to ensure that all emergency radio and phone boxes are in working order, and they are attempting to limit the noise in the tracks so workers can hear trains coming.

To me, these measures seem like common sense. Working on the tracks is one of the most dangerous jobs in New York. Following safety procedures is a matter of survival.

TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint seemed to agree. “These are concrete steps in the right direction,” he said.”For us at TWU, there is no doubt that structural safety deficiencies —including a lack of communication, as well as faulty procedures and rules — contributed to the deaths of Danny Boggs and Marvin Franklin. We are committed to working with the leadership of NYC Transit to ensure meaningful change and does justice to our members who have made the ultimate sacrifice.”

Preliminary sketches of the new station show the shifting sidewalks and traffic patterns on Broadway. (Click to enlarge; Courtesy of the MTA)

Please note, the hearing mentioned below is scheduled for Wednesday, June 6, and not Tuesday as the post originally implied. My fault.

Nearly one year ago, Community Board 7, the lords of the Upper West Side, overwhelmingly supported a plan to overhaul the northern entrances of the 96th St. stop on the IRT. Tomorrow, these plans — a drastic reconstruction of one of the system’s oldest stations — will inch one step closer to reality as the MTA hosts a public hearing on the proposed Station Access Changes.

Currently, the 96th St. station entrances are a bit of a disaster. Passengers have to enter on either the southwest or southeast corners of Broadway. They must walk down one narrow staircase to reach the turnstile area. After swiping through, riders then have to walk down another set of narrow staircases to each a tunnel underneath both the uptown and downtown platforms. Then, straphangers have to walk up yet another staircase to reach the platform.

Additionally, the entrance on the southeast corner of Broadway and 96th St. is open only during the day. Any nighttime passengers heading north must cross the street to get to an open entrance and then walk back that length to reach the uptown platform.

The plans to streamline station access and to make this high-volume station handicapped-accessible are, according to the MTA, as follows:

NYC Transit proposes to close the sidewalk stairs on the southwest and southeast corners of 96th and Broadway and to replace these entrances with a head house built on an expanded Broadway median between 95th and 96th Streets. The new head house will have stairs and elevators leading directly to the uptown and downtown platforms. This entrance will be open and staffed full time.

The sidewalk entrances need to close because the Broadway median must be expanded to make room for the head house. To allow for the widened median the Broadway sidewalks will be narrowed and the sidewalk area where the stairs are now will be eliminated.

This is an interesting plan, and it’s hard to come out against it at first brush. Most notably, these plans will provide elevator access (that is, handicapped access) to the first (or last) transfer point on the West Side IRT lines. It will also reduce the total elevation change for passengers from 43 feet (down-down-up) to just 19 feet (down). Furthermore, the four seven-foot wide staircases to the platform will replace the current two five-foot wide staircases thus reducing station congestion.

But on the other hand (or the “disbenefits,” as the MTA terms it) are the additional walking people will have to do above ground. The new structure will be fifty feet south of the current entrances and in the center of Broadway. The MTA claims that the two out of every three passengers who have to wait at a red light to cross Broadway will be delayed a whopping 26 seconds.

As a native of the Upper West Side, though, I’m much more concerned with the decrease in available sidewalk space. The new plans call for moving Broadway nine feet on either direction to compensate for the wider island in the center of Broadway. While the sidewalks would be 15 feet wide, that’s a big decrease from their current width of 23 feet.

But the benefits of the station house should outweigh one shorter block. It will be easier and faster to enter one of the more crowded stations on the West Side. Meanwhile, above ground, the station will resemble the new structure at 72nd St. The same firm is signed on for this project, and the plans call for a wider median with a seating area at 96th St. leading to the station entrance in the middle of the block. That sounds good to me.

MTA Public Hearing: Station Access Changes, Wednesday, June 6, 6 p.m., MTA Headquarters, 347 Madison Avenue – Fifth Floor