Second Ave. Sagas

Category: MTA

  • One year in, grading Jay Walder

    Nearly one year ago, Jay Walder took over the reins of the MTA from Elliot Sander. The outgoing MTA CEO and Executive Director had been well regarded among transit planners, but when the state agreed to institute its payroll tax plan, Sander’s job was no more. The state reorganized the MTA’s governing structure so that the CEO and board chairman would be one person, and that one person would be Jay Walder.

    A year later, the MTA is struggling through more financial problems, and Walder has moved ahead in his rather thankless job. In good times, politicians will use the authority’s bureaucratic bloat to gain political points, and during bad times, those same politicians will blithely rob from the MTA’s revenue streams and then bash the authority for slashing service, raising fares or both. Even as the MTA often deserves a heavy dose of criticism, those in charge are judged and harshly at that.

    In The Daily News this weekend, Pete Donohue rounded up some of the city’s transit advocates and business community heads to grade Jay Walder. Somewhat surprisingly, the marks were mostly high, but Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign leveled the harshest criticism. If anything, the judges are almost too generous in their grades.

    Donohue asked his panel to grade on five categories: finances/fares, technology, labor relations, efficiency/eliminating waste and service improvement. In a year dominated by service cuts and fare hikes, the MTA’s economic situation and Walder’s handling of it have taken many of the headlines, but these judges, with one exception, gave Walder grades in the A range. “Walder was dealt a bad deal,” Robert Yaro, head of the Regional Plan Association, said. Yaro, who gave Walder an A-, continued, “The State Legislature grabbed money from the budget and payroll taxes are coming in under expectations. He’s facing an unparalleled situation and it is real.”

    Others on the panel praised him for opening up the MTA’s finances and “leveling with the public on the need for fare hikes and service cuts .” Yet, Walder was docked marks for not setting a fare policy that, in the words of CBC’s Charles Breacher, “links fares to the cost of a ride.” Gene Russianoff gave him the MTA head a C- but noted that “the economy handed Walder this mess.”

    Across the board, the judges praised Walder’s handling of technological innovation. Walder’s relationship with technology is, after all, why Gov. David Paterson tabbed the form Transport for London official. Robert Paaswell, director of the Urban Transportation Research Center at CUNY, gave Walder an A. “This is a strength and changes are being made,” he said, “but he needs to be selling the importance of next generation technology to the public more.” Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for New York City noted that, despite Walder’s expertise, “budget problems have pushed tech investments to the back burner.”

    As the report card progressed into the hot-button area of labor relations, the grades grew worse. Russianoff gave Walder and F for his handling of the TWU. “Raw tensions fueled by hundreds of layoffs, management’s mean hit on spit-on bus drivers and personal attacks on Walder” is how he explained the grade. “Riders” — Russianoff’s constituents — “need the warring parties to find common ground.” Brecher, on the other hand, praised him with a B grade for “pushing for changes in overtime and scheduling.”

    The panel spoke glowingly of Walder’s attempts at internal restructuring and consolidation, moves that have already saved the MTA approximately $500 million annually. “More than any other chief executive, he’s aggressively taken on combining functions,” Yaro, who gave him an A, said. Scoring Walder an A+ here, Wylde echoed, “Walder has accomplished more in one year than we saw happen in the previous decade.”

    Yet, Russianoff, who gave Walder a B+, hit upon the key challenge facing anyone in charge of the MTA. Walder, he says, has “miles to go before public sees MTA’s action as credible.” It’s tough to get the public exciting over the minutiae of bureaucratic reorganization, and until Walder can translate his internal cost savings into better service for the MTA’s riders, New Yorkers will not embrace the notion of a leaner MTA.

    Finally, the panel discussed service improvements, an area clearly lacking at the MTA. Russianoff and Wylde were the most critical as the two handed out an F and a D respectively. “Cuts in express bus and other services have been very painful to neighborhoods like Bay Ridge, where I live. Progress on Bus Rapid Transit seems to have slowed,” Wylde said.

    Charles Brecher’s C and his assessment seem to capture the reality of the situation best. “The effort to accelerate bus rapid transit services is a plus,” he said, “but still missing is strategic thinking about long-run improvements. …More reliable service on the existing lines requires more attention to state-of-good-repair work.” Without money, though, none of this is possible, and the five critics seemed to offer up a fair assessment of Walder’s strengths and weaknesses over his first year on the job.

    Of course, I can’t end a report card piece without chiming in with my own views. So without ado… (more…)

  • MTA fires highlight benefits of redundancies

    Despite a raging fire yesterday afternoon, Metro-North restored full service by the evening rush hour. (Photo via WTNH)

    Say what you will about the MTA’s management structure. Carl Paladino, for one, called it “corrupt and bloated” while touring Manhattan island. Yet, the authority’s constituent parts certainly know how to keep their trains running.

    For three hours yesterday afternoon, Metro-North’s only point of access for trains into and out of Manhattan and the popular Grand Central Terminal was a fiery inferno. A transformer explosion set fire to the wooden pier until the 138th St. Lift Bridge across the Harlem River, and for nearly four hours from 11:45 a.m. to around 3:30 p.m., the bridge burned. Officials feared damage to the structure, but Metro-North ran regular rush hour service to and from the city.

    For governing officials, this Metro-North fire raised the fears of another great infrastructure collapse. Just a little under a month ago, a fire near Jamaica, Queens knocked out service on nearly every Long Island Rail Road line, and it took the MTA nearly a week to restore full service. A few years ago, in 2005, a fire in a Chambers St. signal room raised fears that service on the 8th Ave. IND would be slowed for years. Service was back up to speed within weeks.

    In discussing the aftermath of the 138th St. Lift fire, Andrew Siff as NBC New York asks if the MTA has an infrastructure problem. “When you don’t do as much maintenance,” Bill Henderson, head of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said to Siff, “things start to happen, and that’s what we’re concerned about.”

    Another long-time critic of the MTA, New York City’s Comptroller John Liu, voiced similar concerns. “The MTA has a difficult job,” he said. “The system is over a hundred years old, more investment needs to take place with regard to keeping the infrastructure up to date.”

    Of course, with funds stretched, the MTA can’t pour millions into infrastructure upgrades as often as it would like, but it benefits in other ways from the care of its forefathers and smart planning today. Particularly with regards to the subway, the MTA’s current systems have built-in redundancies that allow operations at high capacity levels even in the event of an emergency. Not all of its signal systems for the 8th Ave. line, for instance, were arrayed in the storage closet that caught fire in 2005. When the Twin Towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, the ability to switch trains from various local tracks to the express lines allowed Transit to run trains to nearly every part of the city.

    For Long Islanders, the fire in August exacerbated the problems with a poorly designed system. Because nearly every train out of Penn Station bound for points east has to route through Jamaica, one fire could knock out the system. But for Metro-North, the same does not hold true. Had the fire destroyed part of the 138th St. Lift, the MTA could have used the new Yankee Stadium stop as a terminal. Although doing so would strain capacity on the Manhattan-bound 4, B and D trains, the new station was designed to serve as a de facto terminal in case of an emergency in Manhattan. Redundancies, in other words, are necessary to keep a system moving.

    Unfortunately, as money grows scarce and costs rise, redundancies are among the first to be eliminated. As the MTA builds part of the Second Ave. subway, plans have shrunk the new line for four tracks to three to two, and the Second Ave. Subway would be one of the few parts of the system in which no bypass or express option would be available in the event of stalled train or more serious emergency. These redundancies aren’t a luxury; they’re a necessity that helps the MTA meet the demands millions of people place on its 24-hour transit network daily.

    The MTA may have a problem with aging infrastructure, but that problem could be worse in 30 years when we realize we haven’t spent wisely on new infrastructure. The older parts of the system just might age better.

  • Praising the MTA’s first responders

    We often forget the scope of the rescue work in which the city engaged in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. While the day itself will forever be memorialized, the weeks after the Towers fell saw thousands of people sacrifice their time, energy and health to participate in the rescue mission. Allan Rosen, writing at Sheepshead Bites, discusses the ceremony and praises the MTA and its employees who went above and beyond during the trying weeks after the attacks. He writes: “From the MTA employees who guided people to safety to the heavy lifters searching for survivors and later for bodies, to the bus drivers shuttling rescue workers and victims’ families, each did their part exceedingly well. As one of the speakers put it, there was no one giving orders, and if you paid these people a million dollars, they could have not worked any harder.”

    Rosen attended a small ceremony earlier this week for those at the MTA who put themselves in the line of duty on the day of and the days after the attacks. He talks about the people who were driving trains south of Manhattan when the planes struck and urges us all to remember how “in times of crisis, the agency excels.” As the ninth anniversary of the attacks passed last Saturday, it is well worth a minute or two to salute those who did their all to help cope with the aftermath and keep casualties as low as possible.

  • Disabled riders file suit to overturn service cuts

    Ten days ago, WNYC’s Alisa Chang reported on the stirrings of legal action from disabled riders who believed they were unfairly impacted by the MTA’s June service cuts. As legal services groups and disabilities rights advocates worked to prepare filings, the WNYC story served to put the MTA on notice of yet another legal challenge to their service cuts plans.

    Earlier this week, three disabled riders along with two non-profit organizations — Disabled In Action of Metropolitan New York and The Brooklyn Center for the Independence of the Disabled Inc. — allegedly filed suit in federal court in Brooklyn, formally lodging a complaint against the MTA’s service cuts. The filing, which I cannot find on the Federal PACER and have been unable to get from Legal Services NYC or the two other named legal groups, is said to claim that disabled riders were disparately impacted by the service cuts. The plaintiffs have sued both the MTA and New York City Transit and are requesting a permanent injunction reversing the service cuts and restoring paratransit services.

    When I track down the complaint, I’ll post it here. For now, we must rely on the the organization’s press release for details:

    The lawsuit challenges city-wide service cuts implemented by the MTA and NYCT beginning on June 27, 2010, cutting eighty-nine bus lines. These service cuts have forced transit passengers either to travel a greater distance to an alternate bus route or to travel by subway rather than by bus. For Plaintiffs, however, both of these options are impossible, thus imposing a greater hardship on people with disabilities than on people without disabilities. And they cannot rely on the City’s already overburdened paratransit system – Access-A-Ride – because rather than ensuring that additional resources are devoted to Access-A-Ride in anticipation of the increase in demand occasioned by the reduction in bus service, the Defendants have instituted or approved significant cuts to the system. There are approximately 138,000 individuals approved for Access-A-Ride and disabled riders made 5.8 million trips on Access-A-Ride in 2008; the June 27th transit cuts are estimated to eliminate 26,000 trips on Access-A-Ride each year…

    The plaintiffs’ lawsuit asserts that the Defendants’ actions violate both the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The ADA mandates that public entities may not discriminate against people with disabilities and may not deny them the benefits of services provided to people without disabilities. And the law makes it clear that it is “discrimination” for a public entity which operates a fixed route system to fail to provide paratransit services that are “comparable to the level of designated public transportation services provided to individuals without disabilities using such system.” This includes response time, which also must be comparable, to the extent practicable, to the level of designated public transportation services provided to individuals without disabilities. 42 U.S.C. section 12143(a) (2). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against a protected class by any program which receives federal assistance.

    Without reading the pleadings, I can’t assess the plaintiff’s chances of success, but considering the contours of the ADA and New York City Transit-specific provisions, it will be tough for them to secure a permanent injunction that reverses the entire slate of service cuts.

    Still, that won’t stop the lawyers from arguing the case. Jane Greengold Stevens from the New York Legal Assistance Group claims that the MTA must beef up its Access-a-Ride options if the cuts are not restored. “If the bus lines or even some of the bus lines are not restored,” Stevens said, “then they’re going to need to not only rescind the cuts to Access-A-Ride, but also actually augment it in order to meet the need created by the elimination of the buses.”

    Even the borough’s politicians — the same ones who won’t provide money for the MTA to offer what they feel are adequate services for disabled riders — are getting in on the act. Councilwoman Letitia James hosted a rally in support of the lawsuit, and Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz voiced his beliefs. “Some of these routes may not be the most heavily used,” he said, “but they are absolute lifelines for riders with disabilities or who are elderly. There is simply no reasonable way for people with mobility and accessibility issues who cannot take the subway—especially considering many stations are not ADA-compliant—to get around with cuts to these vital bus routes and Access-A-Ride.”

    As sympathetic as I am to the plight of the city’s disabled riders, this is not a lawsuit that will be easy to win.

  • Searching for more alluring subway retailers

    The MTA takes in approximately $70 million a year in rent from stores that take out space in subterranean complexes, but most of these shops are nothing more than an after-thought. Some are designed to entice tourists searching for novelties, and others offer up little bit more than drab clothing, obscure CDs or lukewarm sodas. Few, if any, would be considered high end, and the MTA could be sitting on some untapped real estate resources.

    Now, faced with the need to generate more revenue, the MTA is looking to attract what Heather Haddon called high-end retail stores to take out space in the subway. One — called Grast — opened recently at 42nd St. and 8th, and the authority’s real estate folks are looking for more. “It’s a new approach,” agency spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. “We’re looking to attract a new wave of edgy and stylish vendors that put some thought into their store’s design.”

    Just imagine that: the subway system as a shopping destination.

  • Being Jay Walder

    Amidst a fiscal crisis, Jay Walder, center, hasn’t been able to implement many of his plans for the MTA. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

    When Jay Walder took over as the MTA CEO and Chairman nine months ago, he thought he was inheriting an organization on the path to financial recovery. The state legislature had just passed a comprehensive funding package that was supposed to provide the authority with some fiscal stability over the next few years. But, as we know, once the economy bottomed out, the legislature stole earmarked funds and the payroll tax revenue came in well below the state’s tax accountants’ estimates, Walder had to set aside his ambitious plans to solve the MTA’s financial crisis.

    So instead of presiding over growth, in the short term, Walder has presided over contraction. The authority dusted off its plans to trim service, started cracking down on waste and overstaffing at both the administrative and operation levels and readied a sweeping proposal to raise fares. It just might save the MTA, but at what cost?

    Along the way, Walder made more than a few enemies. Union leaders, while working with him behind the scenes, have not publicly embraced the MTA head. After all, who could blame them? Walder has engaged in a public battle to cut down on jobs, and the union doesn’t want to and shouldn’t accept layoffs without a fight. Walder has also alienated a public already frustrated with the MTA by putting into place service cuts and fare hikes. And he still has five more years left on his not-quite-ironclad contract.

    Late last week, Eliot Brown of The Observer profiled Walder’s first nine months. As Jay proclaimed his adherence to the agreed-upon 7.5 percent fare hike, Brown pondered a question that should concern transit advocates throughout the city: Will Walder “ever be able to unshackle himself from fiscal issues sufficiently to install more noticeable, meaningful changes-an undertaking that would take time and money-or will he continue to have to put out these fiscal fires, started long before his arrival, with viciously unpopular actions?”

    Brown’s piece provides a nuanced look at the financial troubles plaguing the MTA. He tracks the travails of the five-year capital plan and highlights how the authority is dependent on the state for operations funding while the state would rather have nothing to do with it. Into this morass came Walder from McKinsey (and before that, Transport for London). “When I heard that he was possibly going to [take the job], I said, ‘There’s no way this guy is going to want to take a pay cut to take this,’” one MTA Board member said to The Observer.

    What makes Walder stand out and what gives me hope that he could shine if given the money and support is the fact, as Brown notes, that “he is the first MTA chairman in two decades who was not a campaign contributor to the sitting governor. Instead, he is simply a pure transit technocrat, one whose well-regarded analytical approach-a “performance indicators” report on the agency’s Web site shows month-by-month changes to things like on-time performance-speaks of his time at McKinsey.”

    But Walder must also recognize political reality. The governor who appointed him — David Paterson — will be in office for just a few more months before giving way, in all likelihood, to Andrew Cuomo. The current Attorney General has been relatively silent on issues of the MTA and hasn’t given his vote of confidence to Walder. As the MTA’s top spot is often a political plum, I don’t expect him to do so yet, but Walder has a Golden Parachute. Cuomo would be a fool to ignore both the CEO’s credentials and the money owed to him.

    For better or worse, the MTA is where it is because previous leaders haven’t had the economic management expertise and the transit knowledge to deliver a better product. Walder may not be the most tactful when it comes to service cuts; he might not be the most invested into the politics; and he may not be the perfect leader. But he should be allowed to stick around for a while, to ride out the financial tide, and to see his pro-rider initiatives implemented. “I,” he said to Brown, “retain the view that our elected officials are going to recognize what the MTA has done in a very difficult climate. I think they will recognize what’s happened.”

  • A $10 million communications consolidation plan

    As part of its never-ending mission to both close a $400 million deficit and make every dollar count, the MTA has announced a new initiative that will restructure the agency’s internal communications departments and save $10 million annually. Although the savings all small, the restructuring will lead to better organizational efficiencies across its various subagencies.

    “By operating the MTA as one company instead of a loose collection of agencies we can provide the most efficient and effective service to the 8.5 million New Yorkers who rely on our transportation system every day,” Jay Walder, chair and CEO, said. “Consolidating these functions is a part of our effort to overhaul how the MTA does business to make sure that we are using every dollar as wisely as possible. These actions will pool resources, streamline operations and create savings.”

    The first phase of this reorganization is very much inside baseball, and it will see the MTA overhaul its call centers, media relations and communications departments. The MTA made headlines when the New York tabloids revealed that the authority had more than 100 phone numbers and five customer service call centers. A “virtual consolidation” with a voice-recognition system will reduce the number of phone numbers and allow the authority to cut back on call centers.

    On the media relations front, each sub-agency has its own fully-staffed press office. The authority will now maintain a “single, centralized press office” and cut back on the staffing levels. The same holds true for the communications departments. Diana Jones Ritter, a government executive for 26 years, will oversee this restructuring.

    This is certainly a praise-worthy move by the MTA, but it’s also one that shouldn’t have been borne out of a financial crisis. The various agencies — Transit, Metro-North, LIRR — had independent press offices and communications departments because they were folded into the MTA over time. Never had any head tried as Walder has to reorganize internally, and it’s a move that any independent business consultant would recommend.

  • DiNapoli: MTA could beef up real estate dollars

    For years, critics of the MTA have accused the authority of underselling its real estate offerings and not maximizing potential profits from its property holdings. In a report issued today, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli accused the MTA of doing just that. The authority, he says, doesn’t need to rent some spaces it does and hasn’t made all of its potential spaces available to rent.

    Although DiNapoli used this platform to bash the MTA on service cuts, his report lacks a knockout punch.“Millions of New Yorkers rely on the MTA,” DiNapoli said. “Those New Yorkers can’t afford to pay more while the MTA ignores potential cost savings. But that’s exactly what has happened here. Before making drastic service cuts and talking about fare hikes, the MTA has to maximize the value of its real estate holdings by advertising their availability and ensuring that it’s receiving market-rate rents for prime properties. The MTA should also publish a full list of its real estate holdings as required by law and let New Yorkers know how it’s going to capitalize on these assets.”

    The Comptroller’s audit (PDF), which covers a four-year period beginning in 2005, found that the MTA generates nearly $200 million in real estate revenues per year but could do more. It accused the agency of leaving its properties, such as 370 Jay St. in Brooklyn, vacant while allowing not charging interest or late fees on missed rent payments. He bulleted his findings:

    • Non-government tenants owed the MTA a total of $9 million in rent during the audit period;
    • The MTA did not effectively market the space above certain properties (known as ‘air rights’), despite estimates that the rights could generate more than $12 million in revenue;
    • Six large rental units in the 42nd Street/Sixth Avenue subway station at Bryant Park had been vacant since 2004;
    • The MTA does not ensure its rents are competitive with market values and does not charge interest and late fees when appropriate;
    • Two of the agency’s buildings—one vacant and one nearly-vacant—cost more than $6 million to maintain; and
    • More than one-quarter of the MTA’s occupied rental units sampled were not rented through the required competitive rental processes.

    As far as recommendations go, DiNapoli’s were fairly tame. He wants the MTA to streamline its real estate databases and portfolio management system; he wants to see a “strategic marketing plan” to make sure empty spaces are being promoted; and he would like the MTA to collect interest and late fees on missed rent payments. Considering the field day The Post had with this report, nothing DiNapoli said or recommended came as a big surprise. Left unsaid by DiNapoli as well were any details as to the city as the ultimate landlord in many cases hamstrings the MTA’s ability to administer its property with any flexibility.

    For its part, the MTA acknowledged DiNapoli’s conclusions. “While MTA real estate generates nearly $200 million each year to support the transit system, our ongoing financial issues demand that we think creatively and do more,” the authority said in a statement. “We are trying new technology to increase advertising revenues, working to change regulations that limit our ability to develop our assets, and better utilizing space as we downsize. No stone can be left unturned to maximize revenues and reduce costs, and we are actively pursuing each of these initiatives.”

  • Walder consolidates MTA Board committees

    The news out of MTA HQ tonight is a rather wonky bit of restructuring, but I think it’s an important item nonetheless. In a letter to the MTA Board, CEO and Chairman Jay Walder announced a streamlined committee roster. In an effort to make the MTA’s various subagencies “more effective and more efficient,” the Board committees will be consolidated.

    The biggest changes are how these committees are now grouped by service area. Instead of having two separate committees overseeing Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, one committee will take care of commuter rail lines. Walder wants to encourage these agencies to work together in a “more consistent and cost effective manner.” Similarly, all MTA bus operations will now be under the control of one committee as well.

    Meanwhile, two committees — the Capital Construction and Real Estate groups — are being eliminated outright. The Board oversight for these projects will be subsumed by the respective committees. So, for example, New York City Transit’s committee will oversee the Second Ave. Subway and the 7 line extension while the LIRR/Metro-North committee will have oversight of the East Side Access project. The Finance Committee will take over the duties for the Real Estate group.

    In a sense, this is how the MTA itself would be structured if the organization were to be built from the ground up. One group would oversee commuter rail and another the buses. Major projects would be under the purview of the agency tasked with operating the eventual new line. It would just make sense.

    In other Board news, the six non-voting members who lost their seats when Albany failed to reauthorize their seats on the MTA Board are back in business. Because of eventual action in Albany and inaction by the governor, the law has been restored, and the non-voting Board members — including Andrew Albert of the New York City Transit Riders Council and Norman Brown from the Metro-North Railroad Coalition — have been reinstated.

  • A new effort to target homeless undergound

    For many homeless people in New York City, the subways are an alluring spot. Getting in costs just two dollars; they’re open 24 hours a day; and train cars and stations provide shelter from the elements. Yet for the millions of New Yorkers who use the subway to commute around the city, homeless people can make the trips unpleasant and the subways unsightly. In a move designed to combat the growing number of homeless people taking up residence at various train terminals, the MTA and the Bowery Residents’ Committee have pledged to increase outreach efforts and the number of case managers targeting the subway’s homeless.

    According to Heather Haddon of amNew York, a new $1.5 million contract is set to commence in March, and case workers will target areas such as Penn Station and Grand Central where the homeless concentration is particularly high. Over the last few years, the number of homeless people in subways has risen, and an increased attention to this problem will serve both social needs and commuter comfort.