Second Ave. Sagas

Category: MTA Economics

  • Schaller calls for big ideas for PLANYC2030

    Continuing our look at the Mayor’s PLAN2030 for a sustainable New York City, we arrive at Bruce Schaller, noted transportation consultant. While Schaller did not have the same official platform as Gene Russianoff did, he long has enjoyed a position of prominence in New York City’s transportation field.

    Last month, Schaller penned a long piece in the Gotham Gazette on sustainable transportation measures that should be implemented between now and 2030. While containing a few little ideas that would make the city much more pedestrian-friendly, Schaller focused around big ideas that would ideally provide for better public transportation and greater disincentives to drive in the City.

    On a macro level, Schaller recommends against the “chaotic” status quo, urges quick action on big capital plans (such as the 2nd Ave. subway) so that they won’t be derailed and calls for cooperation among government bodies and agencies. All of these suggestions are pretty standard stuff for the good government groups and consultants that serve as watch dog organizations in New York City.

    Specifically, Schaller pushes for three ideas. The first encompasses the congestion tax that every public transportation and livable streets advocate has called for recently.

    The economic signals need to fixed. That means congestion pricing for the Manhattan business district. Pricing should be applied as narrowly as possible, affecting only those motorists who by driving at the busiest times and places most contribute to slowing down everyone else. I’ve outlined a plan for peak period charges inbound to Manhattan in the morning peak period, outbound in the evening peak period, and for driving anywhere in the business district midday.

    (more…)

  • Transportation advocates call for more MTA funding from City

    Around the halls of City Hall, the phrase “Sustainable City” has been making the rounds. The Mayor kicked off this focus on the future when he unveiled his PLANYC2030 initiative a few months ago.

    Bloomberg, looking at how far the city had come since 1981, wants the next 25 years to be as prosperous for this rapidly growing Metropolis. Chief among New Yorkers’ concerns are issues surrounding transportation. From a congestion tax to new subway lines, to folks advocating for pedestrian-friendly traffic plans to groups calling for increased public transportation, how we will get around this fair city is on everyone’s minds.

    As the mayor and his people are working to formulate concrete plans for the next two and a half decades, transportation advocates are having their voices heard. Last week, Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the Straphangers Campaign, testified in front of the Transportation Committee. He spoke at length about adding capacity to the city’s crowded transportation system. Noting that average daily ridership during the week is at 7.2 million, Russianoff urged curbing traffic and adding funding to mass transit. Allow me to quote at length.

    Achieving the goal of traffic reduction is only possible if the transit system can handle the increase in ridership from individuals shifting from driving to the subways and the buses…The City can help add transit capacity by providing added funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s core rebuilding program.

    That program — at a price tag of $11 billion between 2005 and 2009 and with four more five-year multi-billion dollar increments through 2030 — now includes some funding for projects that would expand transit capacity. These include buying more subway cars and buses to modestly increase the size of the transit fleet and modernizing signal systems to allow for computer-driven subway cars that run faster and safer at more frequent service levels…All these projects could be more quickly advanced and have more ambitious goals with additional funding.

    Right now, the City’s funding of the MTA’s core capital plan is the lowest it’s been in twenty years. The city now gives $70 million a year in general transit capital funds, a total of $350 million over the life of the 2005 to 2009 MTA capital plan. That’s about 3% of the funding for the plan…Tying specific goals to the 2030 timetable would help achieve the goal of added transit capacity set by Mayor Bloomberg. For example, the MTA and the City should move to computerized signals and a large transit fleet well before 2030 if they hope to move a City with a million more people.

    It’s hard to argue with Russianoff. The City, no doubt, should be spending more on mass transit and other alternatives to automobile traffic. Even with the promise from President Bush, Governor Spitzer and Senator Schumer of money for capital projects (such as the 2nd Ave. Subway and the East Side LIRR link), the city should kick in more money.

    Furthermore, with concrete goals, the city could earmark money for specific MTA projects as they have done with the 7 line extension. That way, money the mayor wants to go toward building a sustainable system wouldn’t be siphoned off by routine maintenance or increased salary demands. The MTA would still of course need to find those funds, but a plan that calls for improving transportation in a city of 9 million by 2030 should be able to earmark the funds for specific projects.

    While Russianoff was speaking to the right crowd, he wasn’t the only one talking sustainable transportation issues. Transportation consultant Bruce Schaller discussed similar themes as it relates to PLANYC2030 in his most recent piece for the Gotham Gazette. Later today, I’ll take a look at what Schaller has to say about expanding and maintaining transportation capacity for the next 25 years.

  • MTA proceeding with 7 line extension process, for now

    The saga of the 7 line extension continues. A few weeks after MTA CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander announced that the project was on hold while the city’s contributions to cost overruns was in question, the Transit Authority is proceeding apace with the project, funding be damned. For now.

    On Tuesday, the MTA awarded its first contracts for the project to extend the reach of the purple 7 to 34th St. and 11th Ave. But despite this allocation, the MTA is still proceeding with caution as the project may still exceed the $2.1 billion allocated for it by New York City. No one yet knows who will shoulder the burden for cost overruns.

    Metro, one of New York City’s two free dailies, reports on the developments:

    It’s full steam ahead for the 7 line extension — at least for now — as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority awarded a $35.8 million contract yesterday for a construction manager to oversee the project.

    But the new subway plan could be stopped in its tracks as early as this summer if the first round of construction bids comes in too high, warned Mysore Nagaraja, the head of MTA Capital Construction. The city is giving $2.1 billion for the 7 line extension, which will run from Times Square to Eleventh Avenue and 34th Street. Yet fears of cost overruns have led to finger-pointing between the city and the MTA over who would be stuck paying a higher final tab.

    Nagaraja was quoted in numerous news sources this evening as taking something of a hard line against the city’s refusal to cover cost overruns. “Right now, based on our estimate, we are within the 2.1,” he said, “but let’s see what happens with the proposals. We’re going to know whether we are under the budget or we’re going to be way over. At that time, decisions will have to be made between the city and the MTA as to whether we want to proceed with this.”

    So we’re at a standstill but not. The MTA is proceeding with caution as it approaches a project the City it would fund and then later added a caveat of $2.1 billion. I’m afriad we’ll see a shell station at 10th and 41st St. that will never be completed and a less-than-satisfactory resolution to this process. Maybe the City and the MTA can reach a compromise, but history is not on the side of a compromise between these two stubborn governing bodies.

  • MTA doling out big bucks to get homeless out of subways


    A homeless man sleeps as the uptown 2 leaves 72nd St. This is becoming a common sight on late-nite trains. (Courtesy of flickr user slice_of_danny)

    I boarded a downtown 2 train at 96th St. on Saturday night around 11:45 p.m. and encountered a familiar scene. As the car doors slid open and the automated voices loudly announced the stop, I noticed that the car was completely deserted except for one guy.

    “Uh, oh,” I thought to myself. “That’s trouble.”

    Certainly enough, as the doors slide closed, I got a good whiff of the car, and it was not pretty. Breaking the law, I moved between train cars and found olfactory relief. I wish I could say this incident was a rare occurrence, but more and more, I’m noticing it’s an every-weekend event. Ride the subway late enough, and you’ll see the tell-tale signs. Crowded cars surrounding an empty car while the guy with no shoes sleeps sprawled across three seats in that empty car.

    This problem isn’t limited to the trains either. As it’s incredibly hard to sleep with some guy yelling at you to “Stand clear of the closing doors please” every five minutes, many residents of the subway have taken to sleeping in stations. Forgotten corners house homeless people, and the 2nd Ave. stop at Houston Street is a breeding ground for unsavory smells.

    Many of us straphangers don’t believe the MTA ever does anything about that Stinky Guy in the next car. No one wakes him up or makes him leave the trains. But, as The New York Sun reports, the MTA is actually trying to do something about the homeless problem but at a huge cost to the cash-strapped Authority.

    The MTA this year renewed its $1.5 million contract with the Bowery Residents’ Committee, a nonprofit social service provider, to fund the program for outreach workers to visit subway stations and try to convince homeless people to accept escorts to city-run shelters or detox centers…

    The outreach program carried out 875 escorts last year, according to statistics provided by the MTA. Outreach workers estimated that they were re-escorting the same homeless people back to the shelters from subway stations about 25% of the time. “It’s a tough sell,” the program director, Robert Rumore, said. “The largest portion of people we escort is back out again.”

    The article from Monday’s Sun details a program that is hardly the definition of success. Groups of homeless people living together in the subway exert pressure on each other to ignore the entreaties of outreach workers who are facing an uphill battle against people suffering from psychological disorders or chemical dependency issues. Furthermore, while 22 workers patrol the 660-mile subway system, no one works on weekend nights when the problem seems to be at its worst.

    Meanwhile, because many of these homeless people earn money for food by panhandling in the subways, they are loathe to leave the warmth and shelter provided by the roof of the train.

    The police, too, are handicapped. Arrests are meaningless for homeless people, and they, more often than not, return to the subway after being released. While the NYPD’s Homeless Outreach Squad claims some measure of success in reducing the number of homeless subway dwellers down to just under 1000, it may simply be impossible to find a solution in which 100 percent of the subway system is homeless-free.

    While I wholeheartedly support the social benefits of homeless outreach projects in the subway, I am left wondering at the cost to the system. According to The Sun, this project costs $2000 per homeless person removed, and even then, at least a quarter of the 875 folks taken out of the train system head right back in.

    Is the solution a return to the draconian Giuliani-era programs of arrest and incarceration? I don’t think so. But an increased presence of authority figures could do wonders for the problem of Stinky Homeless Guy in A Train Car Syndrome that so plagues the New York City subways.

  • Subway ridership reaches 37-year high

    Subway ridership by month, 2005 and 2006. (Source: NYCT Performance Indicators)

    The F train is too crowded; there’s no doubt about that. While we’re content to blame bad scheduling and unannounced service cuts, subway ridership numbers are contributing to the overcrowding as well.

    After decades of declining ridership numbers, the number of straphangers has shot up over the last few years, and 2006 was no exception. In fact, subway and bus ridership numbers are at a 37-year high, and the city could see record ridership levels sometime in the next decade. Crain’s NewYorkBusiness.com reports:

    Annual ridership on subways and buses rose to 2.2 billion, a level not seen since 1969, when 2.3 billion rides were recorded, MTA officials said on Friday…

    In 2006, there were 1.5 billion trips on New York’s subways. That’s up 3.4% from a year earlier and the highest since 1952, when 1.55 billion trips were made. Average weekday subway ridership rose 2.7%, to 4.9 million, the most since a 1953 when 4.99 million trips were reported.

    So trains are more crowded, and the MTA is not increasing service. In fact, while New York City Transit officials won’t confirm this, most riders feel that subway service has actually declined this year with the F and L trains serving as the biggest examples of this.

    It’s all a matter of economics really as Newsday reports that the average paid fare is just $1.29, a far cry, inflation-wise, from the five cents charged in 1904. The MTA may simply have to raise the fare again to meet service and maintenance demands.

    Meanwhile, as Crain’s reports, 30-day unlimited MetroCards make up nearly 30 percent of all MetroCard sales. While these discounted MetroCards are driving more commuters underground, they are money-losers for the MTA. If people are paying less per ride, the MTA simply cannot capture the same revenue.

    So here’s the tradeoff: Would your rather have cheaper subways and questionable service levels or a slightly more expensive train ride but more frequent subway service?

  • Religious leaders advocating free subway rides

    While the good folks in Queens are still trying to figure out the whole 7 train mess, Theodore Kheel’s recent call for a higher road tax that would subsidize free subway rides has found an unlikely ally among the City’s religious community.

    Writing in The Jewish Press, Rabbi Gershon Tannenbaum has expressed his support for the free subway rides on religious grounds:

    With increasing permitted use of automation and technology on Shabbos, such as halachically acceptable elevators and escalators, the possibility of using fare-free subways on Shabbos and Yom Tov would be of great interest. The majority of poskim in the past have leaned towards disapproval. The ability to use the subway on Shabbos was inhibited due to such considerations astechum Shabbos (measured distances prohibited outside a city) and maaris ayin (appearance of transgressing Shabbos). Should the entire NYC subway system become fare-free fulltime, the question of subway usage on Shabbos could be more clearly defined.

    Since many very observant Jews do not believe in spending money on the Sabbath, free subway rides would enable these religious men and women to utilize the City’s rapid transit system without breaking the Sabbath.

    My only issue with Tannenbaum’s article is his reliance on the same misinformation being promulgated by the media as they attempt to describe Kheel’s plan. Tannenbaum wrote, “Questions whether the subway system would be able to carry the increased number of passengers can be answered by a review of the subway’s history. In 1943 the NYC subway system carried eight- million passengers daily. Today’s passenger load is less than four-and-a-half million daily.”

    As I’ve pointed out in the past, that information is incorrect. The 8 million figure was a one-day high set in 1946 and not an average daily total. Here’s what I wrote two weeks ago in clearing up this misconceptions:

    But the most accurate ridership information I could find (in [a] PDF presentation) showed an annual ridership of slightly more than 2 billion in 1946, largely considered the busiest year in subway history. That amounts to an average daily ridership of around 5.5 million people. Recently, in September of 2006, just over 5 million people a day rode the subways. We’re not that far off from those records.

    Overall, it’s a small bone to pick. I wonder if Rabbi Tannenbaum’s thoughts will gain more traction as the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility continues its Kheel-funded study of a free subway system.

    MetroCard photo from Triborough’s flickr stream.

  • Paper: City subways hard to secure from possible attacks

    Bag inspectors working to guard the City’s subways. (Courtesy of flickr user Runs With Scissors.)

    I’m not exactly going out a limb if I were to state: “New York City and, in particular, the subways should be considered high priority homeland security targets.” No, around these parts, that’s fairly common knowledge.

    But 230 miles to the south, those in charge of the federal purse strings have been loathe to see things our way. The Department of Homeland Security, led and created by those Republicans who aren’t beholden to a New York voter base, has hardly been forthcoming in giving New York the money it needs to adequately protect itself from another possible terrorist attack. As the media has documented, low-population states such as Wyoming have long received more money per person than the coastal states. Wyoming is no terrorist target when compared to New York, Boston, Los Angeles or other coastal cities.

    In fact, DHS did such a good job allocating money that last year, grants to Washington, D.C. and New York City were slashed. That means less money for the subway, less money for the ports, less money for the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and even the Washington Monument and Capitol building. That’s smart government.

    So then, it comes as no surprise that U.S.A. Today recently noted that it is nearly impossible to protect the city’s subway system. Mimi Hall reported:

    It has been a difficult, time-consuming effort just to get the work going, says William Morange, the transit authority’s security director. There are no 100-year-old records left behind to guide workers. No detailed descriptions of which parts of which tunnels were built in bedrock and which were dug out of silt.

    Schiliro calls the MTA’s construction and other security upgrades “incremental risk reduction.” He says none of the nation’s subway systems will be as safe as they could be and should be without more help and money from the federal government.

    This story is your typical “how to protect the subways” story, but it never hurts to see these reports in print. The litany of complaints is the same: There isn’t enough money; no government agency has ever completed an accurate risk assessment focusing on the subways in the urban (and largely liberal) areas of the country.

    As U.S.A. Today noted the problem with protecting the subways, they also noted that the Democrats now in power in the halls of Congress are trying to secure more funding for subway security.

    This is all well and good, but actual subway security only goes so far. There are too many access points, open areas and miles and miles of tracks to patrol. There are too many forgotten and neglected entrances and exits into the subway system, and too many nooks and crannies for everyone to inspect. I will always advocate more federal funds from DHS for security in New York City, but at the same time, I hope the Department is doing enough to protect the country from those who would perpetrate a terrorist attack in the subways. If we can prevent the terrorists — whoever they may be — from reaching the subways in the first place, we’ll have less to worry about underground as the subways continue to roll on.

  • Kheel: Subways should be cheap as free

    00074.jpg

    A view of the old MetroCard prices. (Courtesy of O-R-G.com and Photoshop)

    “Free” is today’s subway word of the day.

    The free frenzy started last week when Streetsblog reported on a talk by Theodore W. Kheel. Kheel, an environmentalist who just gave $100,000 to the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility to study his pet project, issued an interesting proclamation: The subways should be free, and drivers should foot the bill for the MTA’s upkeep.

    Well, today, this news escaped from the world of Streetsblog as The Post and The Sun covered it this morning. The blogs chimed in during the day with SUBWAYblogger voicing support for the project and Brooklyn Record posing a few questions about Kheel’s ideas.

    Let’s dig a little deeper here, and see what Kheel is proposing. For info, we go to The Sun:

    If New Yorkers don’t pay a fee to use the police and fire departments, they should not have to pay to use the city’s mass transit system.

    That’s part of the thinking of Theodore Kheel, who last Thursday donated $100,000 to the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility to study how a free mass transit system could save money for the city. Mr. Kheel, a 92-year-old philanthropist, environmentalist, and labor relations lawyer, says charging a fee to drive on the city’s most crowded streets would create an incentive for drivers to switch to mass transit. The revenue earned on the streets could be used to subsidize free subways and buses.

    On the surface, it’s an interesting premise. The city over services — such as the police and the fire departments — that we as citizens use for free. Or for “free.” The police, the fire department and various other civil organizations are all funded through taxpayer money. Think we’re not paying for that? Think again.

    The subways too are funded through some taxpayer money (local, state and federal) and some fare money (but, as SUBWAYBlogger pointed out, not all fare money goes back to the system). So Kheel wants to charge people more for driving on the crowded city streets, and this money would go toward the subway.

    At the event last week, Kheel, as reported on Streetsblog, said that the free subway would save the city some money. The how here is up for debate. Aaron Donovan at Streetsblog speculated, “that savings would come in terms of reduced costs for road maintenance, fewer vehicle accidents and hence emergency services, reduced asthma cases, etc” would save money. I’ve also heard some people claim that fare collection is costly to the MTA, but I find it hard to believe that even an organization as inefficient as the MTA and New York City Transit would spend more money to collect fares than they would draw in through these fares.

    As the cost of driving goes up, Kheel’s solution would bring more people into the subway. The subway would then become insanely overcrowded, in my opinion, as many who drive out of luxury would stop doing so and turn to the now-free mass transit options. And here is where I see Kheel’s solution breaking down. If fewer people were driving, the revenues drawn in from the increased tolls and new congestions fee would have to off-set a dramatic surge in ridership in the subway. The MTA would need more cars, more maintenance crews, more cleaners and more subway lines. I don’t see how a feasible congestion fee can achieve these monetary goals.

    Meanwhile, the local media is already reporting this story incorrectly. At the event last week, Kheel noted that the one-day ridership record set in 1946 stood at 8.8 million. We’ve come close, but we’ve yet to eclipse this number. The Sun, reporting on the event, claimed, “In 1943, when the fare was five cents, average weekday ridership was more than 8 million, almost double what it is today.”

    But the most accurate ridership information I could find (in this PDF presentation) showed an annual ridership of slightly more than 2 billion in 1946, largely considered the busiest year in subway history. That amounts to an average daily ridership of around 5.5 million people. Recently, in September of 2006, just over 5 million people a day rode the subways. We’re not that far off from those records.

    So for now, this is just a study, but it’s a complicated issue. I’ll pay attention to it, but I’m skeptical. I’m skeptical of the media coverage of this proposal, and I’m skeptical of its feasibility. I am all for a congestion fee; I’m all for free subways. But the numbers just don’t add up.

  • Subway construction plans in jeopardy

    subwaymap.jpg

    Long before he took office, New York’s new governor, Eliot Spitzer, had championed capital construction projects aimed toward improving the state’s transportation infrastructure. High on that list of priorities was the Second Ave. subway.

    Even at such an early stage, the funding for Spitzer’s goals was far from assured. Upstate representatives to Albany were concerned about funneling so much into a city-centric agency such as the MTA, and the billions of dollars needed to complete the first stage of the Second Ave. subway and the Grand Central-LIRR link were never going to be easy to find.

    Now, just a few weeks into Spitzer’s term as governor, the financial outlook for these projects does not look too rosy. In fact, to survive the cutting board, Spitzer may need to step in and deliver the big bucks for the MTA because the MTA’s debt problem may mean yet another postponement for these much-needed projects. The Times Ledger reports:

    The problem is that the MTA’s capital program, which runs through 2009 is running over budget by at least $1.4 billion, according to a report first published by the New York Times. As result of heavy borrowing, the MTA faces years of enormous debt starting next year.

    The $21 billion program is supposed to provide for not only what the MTA calls its mega projects Ð the Second Avenue Subway, East Side Access to bring Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central Terminal but also the purchase of hundreds of new rail cars and the improvement of signal systems and other subway equipment.

    Accordingly, Elliott Sander, the new executive director and CEO of the MTA, will do what heads of bureaucracies do best: appoint a committee. After last week’s The Times’ report, Sander decided to investigate the claims made concerning the MTA’s financials. While he and MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow are skeptical of the alleged $1.4 billion overrun, Sander did note that some of the bigger projects could be put on the back burner while routine maintenance demands are met.

    For those in New York who have been waiting decades for the Second Ave. subway, it would come as no surprise if this project is delayed yet again. But with the federal government kicking in some money for the Second Ave. subway, I would be surprised to see this new subway delayed yet again. Optimism may reign supreme in hoping for the arrival of a subway line 70 years in the planning.

  • Post advocates for higher fare

    As The Times called upon Albany to send more money the MTA’s way to bridge the MTA maintenance budget gap, one of New York’s other papers called upon the riders to foot the bill. In an editorial on Saturday that won’t be too popular with the masses, The Post looked at the issues City Comptroller William Thompson raised last week and decided that the solution was a fare hike.

    In their editorial, The Post is dismayed at the problems. They agree, rightly so, with Thompson that it is not acceptable for the city subways to be in a state of disrepair for the next two decades as the comptroller noted last week. But The Post, unlike Thompson and my commenters, refuses to lay blame on the suburban commuter rails that receive more than their fair share of the funds.

    Thompson’s report is valuable in identifying these outstanding problems. But his claim that the city is being “shortchanged” is dubious.

    For one thing, the subways – along with the LIRR and Metro-North – are part of a unified system. And a majority of commuters – who pay hefty fares to get to the city – ride subways to work once they’re here.

    The Post, a conservative-minded paper owned by FoxNews guru Rupert Murdoch, is wont to call for taxpayer money for public services such as the subway. In that, their reasoning behind this so-called “unified system” is a bit flawed. Sure, the MTA oversees MetroNorth, the LIRR and the New York City Subways. But the MTA New York City Transit is a separate entity within the MTA. The distinction may be fine, but it is an important one.

    In the end, the Alexander Hamilton-founded paper has this to say:

    It’s much easier for the city comptroller to “call” for another $673 million from the state, rather than follow his reasoning to a more logical – yet less popular – conclusion:

    If there’s not enough money to keep the system’s infrastructure up to speed, perhaps the fare should go up.

    Perhaps the fare should go up but not to cover an operating deficit brought on by an imbalanced allocation of monetary resources within the MTA. The Post just isn’t being more logical here.

    (Hat tip to the Wonkster at Gotham Gazette. Tokens from NYCSubway.org)