New York City Transit

Workers at 23rd Street were able to give the track bed a thorough scrubbing with no trains zooming by. (Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin)

For the millions of New Yorkers who rely on the city’s subway system at all hours of the day, the best time for the MTA to do its work is never. We don’t want weekend slowdowns; we don’t want overnight delays; we don’t want mid-day re-routings. We want the subways to run all the time whenever we need it.

That is, of course, a problem when you’re talking about infrastructure that’s around 80 years old at its youngest spots and over 100 at its oldest. To combat a decline that reached a nadir in the early 1980s, the MTA is, as we know, engaged in a never-ending battle to repair its system. We are stuck with weekend headaches, mid-day, off-peak diversions and overnight work. If the early returns are any indication, we might end up with once-a-quarter FasTrack shutdowns as well.

In a presentation to the Transit Committee earlier this week, MTA officials praised the results from this month’s four-day overnight shutdown of the East Side IRT. They spoke of the productivity gains and the money saved, and while a one-time trial along one subway line isn’t enough to judge a program, officials were optimistic that the program would be a successful one in the long run.

According to the laundry list of accomplishments the authority released, work crews identified and completed 324 tasks over the course of the four nights. This included removal of over 20,000 pounds of debris from subway tracks; installation of new tie blocks, plates and friction pads; 311 signal inspections; grout work at various points along the line; and retiling, repainting and repair work at numerous stations, just to name a few. “We’re able to complete work that we would not normally be able to do in our normal customary way of doing it,” Department of Subways head Carmen Bianco said. “The level of exposure [to danger] went down for employees, because we’re not running trains.”

Overall, the authority says it saved around $673,000 by turning off service. If that’s a projectionable figure, the MTA could save around $10 million annually while improving the physical plant in ways they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. That, at least, is the long-term goal, and it’s going to take a few more pilots to see if FasTrack is a sustainable effort. “This is the first time ever in the history of this organization that we’ve done this,” Transit President Tom Prendergast said. “So we need to actually have three or four more experiences before we can ascertain how successful it is and how we can improve upon it, and what the impacts are.”

With the work accomplishments in hand, what of the impact on customers? Some praised the idea as a way to combat decrepit station conditions; others did not. ““This a bad plan that you have decided,” Thanisha Mitchell said to the MTA. “I have to open a gym at 6 am and I have to punch in by 5:30. I actually have to be to work before 5. This Fastrack plan is garbage and effects everyone’s schedule. Your ad says you are reliable, and I don’t believe so.”

Interestingly, the MTA claims that it did not notice increased use of parallel lines either. While the authority halted work on those parallel lines — in this case, the BMT Broadway trains — so as not to further inconvenience customers, the authority noted that extra shuttle service and the so-called gap trains on the Na and R “were not well utilized.” Transit is waiting for a full analysis on adjacent routes and bus lines until more data has been collected.

So now, we wait. In February and March, FasTrack moves to the West Side as the 7th, 6th and 8th Avenue lines get their treatment over the span of five weeks. Then we’ll reassess what it means to lose subway service from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. four nights a week for one week every three months. With the right results, it should be worth it, but the jury is still out on what those right results should be.

Even as temperatures in New York stay unseasonably warm, the MTA is gearing up for snow and ice. After all, the agency doesn’t want a repeat of last winter when the authority somehow managed to forget about a stranded train. So yesterday, the authority unveiled its winter preparedness plan. It’s nothing too outlandish, but as the city wanted to be prepared in the face of Hurricane Irene, so too will it be ready for the first major snowstorm of the season.

“Last winter’s weather was tough for New York and the MTA, but we’ve made improvements to our service protocols, equipment and communications to provide the best possible service this year,” MTA Executive Director Joseph Lhota said. “We’re prepared to clear more snow and ice than ever before and we’ll be working hard to keep service running, but we won’t hesitate to suspend service on parts of our system when it’s necessary to protect the safety of our riders, employees and equipment.”

For the subways, Transit says it is “preparing an impressive fleet of snow and ice-fighting equipment” that will be dispatched in the event of a winter weather plan. The authority has also adopted “procedures for preemptive curtailment of service” in the event of a massive storm. It has also changed its storm response protocols to allow for a Level V response which would be implemented in the face of a massive storm. According to Transit officials, Level V would involve “an orderly and temporary suspension in service on select line segments to allow for snow and ice removal.”

“Our goal has always been to keep our services up and running so that our customers can get to where they need to be no matter what the weather,” Carmen Bianco, senior vice president of subways, said. “We have a tremendous investment in machinery, manpower and experience. But when we performed our review of how we performed during the Christmas weekend blizzard, we determined that there was a point where we should no longer send trains onto the nearly 220 miles of outdoor track of certain lines.”

With respect to buses, Transit and the Department of Sanitation will better align their services to prioritize bus route plowing. Last year, numerous buses were stranded in Brooklyn and Queens for days as plows failed to remove the snow drifts and often trapped buses behind accumulating mounds of snow. The MTA will also be prepared to curtail bus service and remove most articulated buses from the roads as well.

In a way, the MTA had the opportunity to dry-run their winter shutdown plans when Hurricane Irene threatened New York. Although the direst of storm surges did not flood out the subways and the city itself was spared the brunt of the storm, Transit learned what it had to do to get both employees and passengers off the roads and rails safely. Avoiding another winter debacle has now taken center stage.

“The most important shift in agency thinking was moving away from the philosophy that we will deliver service until we can’t,” Transit head Tom Prendergast said. “We learned from last year’s storm that at some point, it was safer and more prudent to temporarily suspend service.”

According to the MTA, its riders are quite satisfied with service. (Source: Customer Satisfaction Survey)

Here’s the $64,000 question for all 5.3 million subway-riding New Yorkers: Are you satisfied with service? Are you happy with your commute? Do you think the MTA is doing a good job? For the second year in row, the authority claims that nearly three-fourths of all riders are satisfied with subway service, but I remain skeptical.

The MTA last year revealed its customer satisfaction survey, and astute SAS readers questioned the methodology. The survey is now back for a second year, and although the MTA is trumpeting across-the-board improvements, problems remain. The sampling is appropriately random, but the scale remains skewed. Whether or not riders are truly satisfied is a question we could debate.

On a top-line level, the results are promising. Overall, 74 percent of riders are satisfied with subway service, and that total is up from 71 percent last year. Furthermore, 78 percent of riders are satisfied with the overall station environment, and that figure too is up from 71 percent next year. If anything, I’m personally less satisfied with station environment these days. I’ve found subway stations to be dirtier and less well maintained recently that at any time in the recent past.

So what then does it mean to be satisfied? In the presentation of findings, the MTA discusses its sample. From June 20-30, the authority conducted 1200 adults who had taken at least one subway trip in the past 30 days. These sample was culled from landlines (86%) and cell phones (14%). The margin of error is +/- 3 percent, and it seems as though the respondents represent a valid survey sample.

The results, though, are skewed to make the MTA look good. The MTA asked respondents to rate over 50 attributes on a scale of 1-10 where 1 and 2 represented very dissatisfied, 3-5 represented just dissatisfied, 6-8 meant riders were satisfied and 9-10 were very satisfied. Generally, anything less than 8 isn’t usually considered “satisfactory,” but the MTA stretched the scale. Thus, 74 percent of riders are willing to give the authority at least a 6 on a 10-point scale. Only 13 percent of riders said the MTA’s subway service was very satisfactory.

By and large, every major metric improved this year over last. According to the MTA, 84 percent of respondents find the MTA comfortable and convenient while 80 percent are satisfied with the courtesy and helpfulness of subway conductors and 79 percent are satisfied with service frequency. Those totals were at 78 percent, 77 percent and 72 percent last year, and yet, those seem to be the topics of more complaints than anything else.

Throughout the survey, the MTA reports increased satisfaction with nearly everything. Riders are more content with station cleanliness this year than they were last, and rush hour crowding on platforms and trains isn’t as bad it was in 2010 before the service cuts and fare hikes. Despite a bump in crime and fewer station gents, riders say they feel more secure on platforms and find platforms cleaner. If you too raised your eyebrow skeptically at this news, well, the MTA thinks it has an answer.

Countdown clocks are driving the bump in customer satisfaction. (Source: MTA)

As the authority notes, the bump in satisfaction may not be due to better service or cleaner platforms. Rather, the countdown clocks are driving the perception of better service. As the authority noted in the survey presentation, “All 54 subway service and station attributes were rated higher by those with countdown clocks in their station than those without a countdown clock in station.”

With countdown clocks, customers are far more satisfied with wait times and predictability of travel time and even seem to appreciate frequency and reliability of subway service even more. By taking the surprise out of wait times, the MTA can create the perception of better control over one’s commute, and thus, riders are predisposed to be more relaxed about their rides. Overall, 96 percent of riders were satisfied with countdown clocks; the other 4 percent are probably annoyed that they don’t work sometimes.

So what then can we conclude from these results? The MTA says that “continued investments in information technology, station maintenance and cleaning, and maintaining reliable service will continue to address customer concerns into the future.” Right now, though, the money seems to be in place to improve only information technology. Is the authority then essentially tricking us all into thinking our commutes are better? I personally like the countdown clocks and find myself less anxious over my waits. But when all is said and done, I’d rather have more train service. Personally, I’m satisfied with my daily commute but barely so. Are you?

With concerns about crowding on the L train drawing headlines this summer, the MTA has pledged to address the issue. Later this fall, they will one roundtrip train to the line between 9 and 9:30 a.m. as an interim measure. Doing so, says the authority, will drop load guidelines under 100 percent, and the authority hopes to bring full CBTC online by the end of 2012.

On the surface, one whole train between 9 and 9:30 a.m. doesn’t sound like much. Here you go, guys. Enjoy your one extra train. Plus, the L line is generally crowded throughout rush hour. For now, though, it could be the difference between trains at 101 percent of capacity and those at 90 percent of capacity. Even with the adjustments in load guidelines last year to consider trains full with a quarter of the passengers standing, that extra train could make some unpleasant rides slightly more tolerable.

The announcement of one extra train — with more to come in another year or so — stems from the summer flurry of news about subway crowds. After The Times reported that weekend ridership was on the rise, politicians took note. Armed with the news that weekend ridership at some L train stops was a shocking 80 percent of weekday ridership, Daniel Squadron called upon the MTA to review service along the L line, and this week, the agency’s internal report has hit the proverbial airwaves.

The document is a 13-pager, and it’s available here as a PDF. A lot of it, though, is extraneous as it is a report that the MTA has had at the ready for a while. They’ve spent a lot of time studying the L line and know the ridership inside and out. It’s going to be the first CBTC route in the city, and if that technology is ready in 14 months, as Transit says it will be, capacity on the L could be bumped up significantly.

First, the numbers: Since 1998, daily ridership along the L has spiked from just over 68,000 to just under 130,000. The MTA has maxed out the line at 17 trains per hour, up from 12 just 13 years ago, and is now running 444 daily L train trips, up from 292 in 1998. As ridership has gone up, the MTA has tried to use the L line — one of two that doesn’t have to share trackage with another route — as a testing ground, and thus, we’ve been hearing about CBTC since before I started this site in late 2006.

With CBTC and ATO, the MTA says it can decrease headways to allow for upwards of 24 trains per hour. The system was plagued by some bad testing results as well as a need to purchase more equipment. After being put on hold in 2006 and then resuming a few years ago, Transit anticipates rolling out a full implementation of CBTC in late 2012, and the authority aims to increase capacity to around 20 trains per hour at peak times, thus lessening the crowds. Those are of course the best laid plans, and we know how that goes.

In the meantime, though, weekend travel will remain problematic. Because of the switching limitations along the Canarsie Line, the MTA usually has to knock out large sections of the route to make sure work is completed. It can’t single-track L trains because that would hinder weekend productivity. Furthermore, with CBTC tests needed before the MTA can move forward with its plan, weekend L service may be cut now and then over the next few months. It might get worse before it gets better.

So L riders looking for space right now should walk to the back. The report details how cars in the front of Manhattan-bound trains — those that open right at the entrances at Lorimer St. and Bedford, 1st and 3rd Aves. — are far more crowded that the last car on the L trains. Loads in the front are at 130 percent while loads in the back are at 99 percent. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. Take heart though, L train riders: Changes are coming ever so slowly.