Public Transit Policy

I don’t often delve into the arena of the federal transportation policy. Generally, the feds are happy to toss some money the MTA’s way and leave the country’s largest mass transit system to operate on its own. Most of the time, it’s a comfortable arrangement for everyone.

Yet, sometimes, the FTA rears its head and requires the MTA — and the rest of the country — to enact costly safety standards. Does the federal government foot the bill? Of course not. Are these standards generally too costly and overprotective to meet the demands of the problems they are trying to solve? Of course.

Most recently, I examined how, in the wake of recent WMATA collisions in Washington D.C., the FTA was considering implementing local transit safety oversight measures that would require a higher level of safety standards than necessary. The costs would fall on the shoulders of the local transit agencies, and the FTA would ensure adherence to the standards by threatening to take away subsidies for those authorities unwilling to comply.

Today, we hear about another unfunded federal mandate that could cost the MTA nearly $700 million out of its capital budget by 2015. The MTA says its commuter rail lines don’t need this safety system because Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains already come equipped with sufficient safety controls. Tom Namako of The Post has the details:

The feds want a system installed that allows a computer to reduce a train’s speed in a number of situations. The MTA trains are already equipped with a similar system, but it kicks in only when one is in danger of crashing into another…

“It’s a lot of money,” said Bill Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “And my belief is that the MTA’s railroads are substantially safer than many of the similar ones in the rest of the nation.”

Metro-North hasn’t seen a passenger die from a train crash in its 27-year history. The LIRR hasn’t had a fatality since the 1950s. Still, Congress mandated in October 2008 that all commuter railroads in the country install what’s known as positive train control after 25 people died in a California crash. But that California railroad — like most others in the nation — was using far less sophisticated equipment than the MTA’s, sources and documents say. Now LIRR and Metro-North — the country’s first- and second-largest systems — have until the end of 2015 to install the safety measures.

In a letter to the feds earlier this month requesting an exemption from these standards, the MTA highlighted how this system would provide only a “marginal benefit” but would bring with it “significant cost and risk to a rail system which currently has a high degree of safety. This one appears to be a typical no-brainer. If the federal government won’t pick up the price tag and if the marginal safety upgrades aren’t worth the significant costs, the MTA should not be expected to pick up the price tag.

I understand the purpose of federal safety standards. After all, someone needs to make sure that our country’s chronically underfunded rail lines are operating with acceptable safety parameters. But the FTA needs to show some flexibility, and here, that should lead to an exemption for the MTA.

As the MTA’s new leadership acclimates to a bad economy and the rigors of heading a much-beleaguered organization, the old bosses are settling into new transit-oriented gigs.

For former New York City Transit President Howard Roberts, that new gig will take him to an office a mile or so north of the MTA’s 2 Broadway headquarters. He has joined Sam Schwartz Engineering, the transit consulting firm headed by Gridlock Sam, as a vice president. “Howard will be at the helm of providing quality transit consulting services to our clients all over the world. His experience is truly one-of-a-kind,” Schwartz said.

While Roberts settles in there, former MTA Executive Director and CEO Elliot Sander has found himself a plum transit and planning position. Currently the group chief executive for global transportation at AECOM, he’ll also be the new head of the Regional Plan Association for the next three years. He is replacing outgoing Chair Peter Herman.

“We are delighted to have Lee’s leadership and expertise in shaping public policy and investments in the metropolitan region,” RPA President Bob Yaro said. “I can think of no better person who understands the challenges we face and possesses the skills to set a bold agenda for both RPA and the region. Lee will also provide the leadership we need for RPA’s America 2050 program, which is preparing national infrastructure and development strategies, including plans for America’s emerging High-speed rail system.”

For Sander, a policy expert who inherited the MTA as a bad time, the RPA position is perfectly suited for his abilities. He won’t need to be the politician he needed to be while heading the MTA and devote his energies toward promoting the RPA’s planning and transportation advocacy. “RPA has always been allied with my fundamental belief that the region’s economic health is centered around our ability to move people and goods efficiently and sustaining the region’s livability.” Sander said. “I look forward to leading this distinguished organization in a new capacity as we forge a path for recovery and livability here and across the country.”

As I wrapped up the Year That Was in Transit for 2009 late last week, the sheer amount of bad news stuck out the most. From January to December, from Transit to Capital Construction, from operating costs to project timelines, the MTA faced more bad news in a year than some agencies face in a decade.

We saw budgets shrivel and die. We saw service cuts threatened, a bad financial package approved, fares go up and more service cuts arrive on our laps as a New Year/holiday present. We saw the timeline for the Second Ave. Subway get delayed by two years (or more), and we saw the opening of the new South Ferry station delayed for months because of a one-inch engineering error. Despite peak ridership figures and great crime and safety numbers, 2009 was not a banner year for the MTA and mass transit in New York City.

As we arrive on the first business day of the New Year, then, I offer up a wishlist of sorts for transit in New York City for 2010. Some of these items will be easier to realize than others, but if all come to fruition, the beleaguered transportation network will be better off for it.

1. A true source of dedicated funding

Right now, this lead item is a no-brainer. The MTA has its financial back to the wall because the piecemeal funding package — one relying on taxi surcharges, payroll taxes and car registration fees — simply didn’t work, and it didn’t work for very obvious reasons. It didn’t work because payroll taxes are too heavily dependent on the economy. It didn’t work because fees and surcharges don’t drive people to transit. It didn’t work because, tautologically, it left the MTA $100-$200 million short of the money it was expected to deliver.

For 2010, the city and state have two choices: Either the MTA will cut services — including the Student MetroCards for which the MTA should not foot the bill — or the government can find a dedicated revenue source. And just what should that revenue source be? I believe it should be either congestion pricing or East River Bridge Tolls. These proposals will generate a set level of revenue for the MTA while also encouraging transit use among those who do not need to drive. It is a far more equitable way to fund the agency than the payroll tax is and also provides an environmental boost to a heavily polluted region.

Also on the table for 2010 will be a handful of far less likely proposals. The state could reenact the commuter tax. The city could restore its pre-Giuliani Era subsidies to the MTA. The agency could raise fares through the roof. Tolls or congestion pricing remain the better, if not the best, solution.

2. A better, more cohesive advocacy and public relations campaign by those who care

As I’ve written on more than one occasion, transit advocacy in the city is disjointed. The Straphangers Campaign advocates for riders while a few other smaller groups are pushing for region-wide transit solutions. No one is actively lobbying for transit funding, and no one is in front of the cameras pushing support for transit as the economic driver of the New York Metropolitan region.

For 2010, those of us who care about transit should work together to get out a better message. That message should focus on support for the MTA, and it should not focus around old wives’ tales about two sets of books or John Liu’s inability to understand basic economics. We should not allow State Senators to claim that few of their constituents take the train by choice when, in reality, the vast majority of those constituents don’t even own cars. We must stand up for transit funding, for transit expansion and for transit solutions. Right now, seven million New Yorkers ride the trains every day, and no group is really doing the job here.

3. Rapid technological innovation and adaptation

When Jay Walder assumed control of the MTA, he spoke at length about the need to bring technological innovation to the MTA. While train arrival boards will be activated along the A Division in early 2011 and the MetroCard may be replaced within a few years, Walder can push now for better and faster technological innovation. He can start by overhauling the MTA’s website so that it is suitable for 2010 and not 1999. The MTA is currently the largest agency without open data, and Walder could improve access for developers and the like by a simple stroke of the pen.

4. A solution to the chilly labor relations

As 2009 drew to a close, the new TWU leadership had no love lost for the MTA. The agency had just lost its appeal of the raises awarded via arbitration, and the union leadership was not happy about the legal battle. Over the next few years, the MTA’s pension and salary obligations to its workers will continue to rise as its financial picture worsens. To work through these fiscal problems, the MTA and TWU will have to set aside their differences and agree to at least talk. I don’t expect the TWU to set aside hard-fought raises or hard-earned pensions, but the MTA is in real danger of defaulting on its payments in a few years. Union leadership has to recognize this reality just as the MTA must work to avoid alienating its workers.

5. A fully-funded five-year capital plan

On a day when few were around to notice, Gov. David Paterson’s representative to the state’s Capital Review Board vetoed the MTA’s 2010-2014 capital plan. Due to a $28.8 billion funding hole, the CRB could not approve the new plan, and the MTA is left with just emergency rollover funds as work continues on the Second Ave. Subway and the East Side Access project. (The 7 Line funding from the City is safe.)

Early this year, the MTA must redraw its capital plan and present a proposal without a 35 percent funding hole in it to the CRB. To continue to meet service demands, the MTA must keep expanding and maintaining its current system, and to do that, it needs a capital plan in place. The Second Ave. Subway must night die; the state of good repair plans cannot die.

* * *

In the end, this list is but a start for transit in 2010. With money tight across the board, it will be a rough ride for all, but in the end, we can’t simply give up on the MTA. The system might need some fixing, but it’s far too important to New York for it die the slow and painful death that we’re currently witnessing today.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post reported on the Obama Administration’s plan to promulgate federal regulations for local transit agencies. At the time, I was vehemently opposed to the regulations on three grounds, and I remain convinced of that position despite a recent editorial from The Times urging the FTA to pursue a national safety regulatory scheme.

My argument was a three-pronged attack on the idea. First, rail transit just isn’t dangerous enough to warrant federal intervention. While auto travel features an injury rate of 100 per 100 million miles and a fatality rate of around 1.27 per 100 million miles, train injury rates are 1.362 per 100 million miles, and the fatality rate is negligible. Second, past practices have shown how burdensome federal safety regulations are. Commuter rail lines and Amtrak trains are made to be too heavy to run at top speeds just so they can meet standards. Finally, because this would be another unfunded government mandate, it would be too much fiscal pressure on public transit authorities already struggling to stay afloat. In other words, it’s just a bad and unnecessary idea.

The editorial board of The Times thinks otherwise. Here’s their take:

The Obama administration wisely wants to end this disjunction by proposing that Congress extend federal standards to subway and light-rail lines now haphazardly regulated in more than two dozen city and regional systems. The safety rules and monitoring are shockingly toothless in too many jurisdictions, with the systems averaging less than one overworked safety worker.

The Washington accident happened on the second-busiest subway line in the nation. It is theoretically monitored by a tri-state committee that was found, however, to have no regulatory authority or enforcement workers.

Under the administration’s approach, the safety of subway and light-rail lines could remain under the jurisdiction of local authorities only if they agreed to upgraded equipment and monitoring standards set by the Department of Transportation. The alternative would be direct federal regulation. Federal money already subsidizes subway and light-rail growth, and it should be cut off to systems that cling to risky standards.

The government was barred from regulating subways and light rail in 1965 when home rule was a priority. But new systems have boomed since then, along with collisions and derailments. The National Transportation Safety Board has warned about the dangers for decades.

The choice for Congress is stark: Improve safety on light rail and subways, or wait for the next train wreck.

Apparently, according to The Times, because Washington’s three-headed WMATA doesn’t have sufficient safety oversight, other transit agencies should have to suffer under the weight of federal regulation as well. Why? Because they accept federal money to operate and grow. Meanwhile, The Times claims that “collisions and derailments” have boomed when that reality has not arrived.

This approach is, simply put, wrong. If the WMATA needs more stringent safety measures, then fine. The Feds oversee a third of the DC Metro and can do with it what they see fit. But cutting off federal funds to other transit agencies who refuse to follow stringent and oftentimes misguided regulations would set a bad precedent. In a time when we need to encourage more transit growth and use, the Administration should not implement measures antithetical to that goal.

If the federal government is willing to subsidize the implementation of costly safety standards while foisting maintenance costs onto local authorities, I would be more willing to support this measure. But the government should not be denying funds to agencies that can’t afford to upgrade already safe systems to meet stringent requirements. Considering that the largest local transit system in the country is in its own backyard, the editorial writers at The Times would do the city well to promote this plan and not the one they espoused today.

Meet Richard Brodsky. He is an influential Assembly representative from Westchester, and he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. More about him in a minute.

Yesterday afternoon, the New York State Assembly approved a sweeping bill that would bring more oversight to the state’s 700 public authorities. Spurred on in part by rampant construction delays, cost overruns and general mismanagement at the MTA, this measure — soon to be approved by the State Senate — would impose more bureaucracy on the bureaucracy. Jeremy W. Peters of The Times has more:

State authorities — which range in size from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with an $11 billion annual budget, to small ones like the Binghamton Parking Authority — would have to reveal more detailed financial plans and allow the state comptroller to audit any contract of more than $1 million that is awarded noncompetitively.

Under the measure, certain large authorities, like the Long Island Power Authority and the Thruway Authority, could not appoint leaders without Senate consent. The new rules would also restrict the sale of land at below-market values, a practice intended to spur development that has been abused by authorities over the years.

The legislation makes efforts to rein in the debt that state authorities and their subsidiaries have taken on — around $150 billion is outstanding — by requiring them to produce guidelines to better manage how they borrow.

“This is a massive reform of a system that was in many ways corrupt, inefficient and dangerous,” said [Brodsky, a leader of the ] efforts in the Legislature to impose more control over the authorities. “These were Soviet-style bureaucracies doing the right thing some of the time, but rife with corruption and off on their own, outside the control of democratic institutions…Those days are over.”

Now, this all sounds well and good. There’s no doubt that New York’s public authorities, long a stronghold of the powerful, operate as a quasi-government within the state. Since the days of Robert Moses’ entrenchment at Triborough, New York’s authorities have needed more control and oversight. If this measure prevents sweetheart land deals similar to the one Bruce Ratner may enjoy for the Vanderbilt Yards land rights, I’m a-OK with that. Who can complain about reducing borderline corrupt or shady practices?

What bothers me, though, are willfully ignorant public statements by our elected representatives. In the Daily News coverage of the Assembly’s vote, Brodsky speaks at length about his targeting the MTA with this measure. “This is the most fundamental reform of Albany in decades,” he said. “This means the repeated catastrophies [sic] we’ve seen at the MTA on fare policy, on contract letting, on two sets of books, those days are over,” he said.

Brodsky is doing no one a favor by rehashing the old and tired claim about the MTA’s two sets of books. The charges come out of a 2003 State Comptroller report by Alan Hevesi, the since-disgraced politician. Eventually, not one, but two state courts ruled that Hevesi’s charges were flat-out false. (Click here for Times coverage from 2003.) Yet, the Internet is replete with people too lazy to investigate the truth: There never were two sets of books.

Brodsky was right to push for authority oversight in some form. The system doesn’t work as well as it should. But he has to take responsibility for his words, and the repeating old charges about two sets of books just makes him look petty while creating confusion and sowing ignorance among those he represents. Fix the MTa, but fix problems that exist and not ones that do not.

Remember the halcyon days of late last week when Gov. David Paterson announced a new plan to replace every New York license plate while charging $25 a car? At the time, state officials claimed that the reflectivity of our current blue plates had run its course and also that the $25 charge would help draw in $129 million over two years.

At the time, I called the fee a pure and simple money grab. Up nearly $20 per car over the 2001 plate replacement fees, the state was simply trying to make money, and I believed that if the outrage over this fee was not at least as loud as the protests over the MTA’s payroll tax, something would be rotten in the state of New York.

Well, now that the state legislature is promising to repeal the fee, I got my wish but for all the wrong reasons. As Michael Grynbaum explores in The Times today, car owners raised a stink because they can’t be bothered to pay for their driving. These upstate drivers claim urban dwellers benefit. Writes Grynbaum:

Leaders in both chambers of the Legislature said they expected to repeal the mandatory charge before April 1, when it was scheduled to go into effect. Lawmakers said they planned to find another way to raise the $130 million in annual revenue that would have been generated, but none offered any immediate ideas.

The fee, up from $5.50 in 2001, had been raised in part to generate more revenue amid the fiscal crisis. Drivers would have received a redesigned plate with a more reflective surface.

But upstate officials argued that they were being forced to pay a charge that city dwellers, who often use mass transit, could avoid. The fee’s demise came a day before a planned protest outside the Capitol.

Considering how New York City subsidizes the rest of the state and considering the price we pay environmentally and socially for driving, that claim is a baseless one. In fact, over at Streetsblog, one commenter highlights the hypocrisy. “Doesn’t anyone in Albany have the brains or the guts to point out that NYC residents, while they may be better positioned to ‘avoid’ the $25 plate surcharge, already pay more than their fair share for road upkeep and mass transit infrastructure, all of which is used to varying degrees by upstate residents whining about $25/car/yr?” BicyclesOnly asked. Of course they don’t.

I’ve never been a complete anti-car evangelic. In the right circumstances, automobiles have their places in society. Yet, sound investment in mass transit and public transportation is vital to New York’s future success and the overall health of our state and nation. Even if we doubt the sincerity of a replacement license plate plan and see through the fees as a blatant money grab, we shouldn’t allow drivers to avoid paying the costs of driving. Maybe city dwellers don’t have to pay the license plate fee, but we have to pay a far greater share of fees and taxes than those upstaters do. Albany shouldn’t lose sight of that reality.

Chalk this one up to a bad idea.

In a move entirely disproportionate to the problem, the Obama Administration is planning to propose federal oversight of local transit safety. Long the purview of the state bodies, safety measures have come under fire in recent months after a fatal crash in Washington, D.C. To combat what federal transportation officials view as rising safety concerns, the administration will, according to the Washington Post, send a plan to Congress that would allow the government to issue mandatory federal safety regulations for local transit agencies.

“After the [Metro] train crash, we were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something about this,’ and we discovered that there’s not much we could do, because the law wouldn’t allow us to do it,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said to the Washington Post

The details so far have not been released, but coverage in today’s Times provides us with some clues:

Currently, 27 state safety agencies hold the responsibility for keeping transit systems safe, but the quality of those agencies varies widely, transportation officials said. Some rely on the very transit systems they are supposed to oversee for financing and lack the authority to enforce their rules. As for staffing, the state safety agencies average less than one full-time staff person per agency, the officials said.

Under the administration’s plan, states would be allowed to maintain oversight of their transit systems as long as they could demonstrate that they have enough fully-trained staff members to enforce federal safety rules, the authority to compel compliance from the transit system and enough financial independence from the systems they are regulating, officials said.

The federal government would also cover the costs of salaries and benefits for state employees overseeing standards. In states that are unable to provide adequate oversight, the federal government would assume that role.

On the surface, standardizing safety compliance and regulations seems to be a sound policy. Yet, when we dig into the rationale behind this and comparable measures as the commuter rail level, the idea breaks down. First, The Times explores the statistics spurring on federal action. Passenger injuries, the paper reports, on subways and light rail have increased a whopping 182 percent. There must be an epidemic, right? Wrong.

Over the last five years, injury rates have increased from 0.483 injures per 100 million miles to 1.362. As a comparison, automobile fatality rates are 1.27 per 100 million miles and injury rates are approximately 100 per 100 million miles.

Second, we can examine how federal safety regulations of commuter rail lines have caused numerous problems. In addition to the costs — which I’ll examine in a paragraph — federal safety regulations have become too burdensome. One of the reasons why commuter rail and Amtrak have yet to utilize fully the potential of high-speed rail stems from the federal government’s safety standards. Because of these mandates, trains are heavier than they need to be. Thus, production costs are increased and top speeds are slower than we would prefer. The balance between safety and efficiency has not yet been achieved.

Finally, the costs of compliance and enforcement are problematic as well. According to page two of the Post’s report, federal capital grants would be rescinded if agencies do not adhere to safety regulations. However, New York state politicians are fearful that the feds won’t foot the bill for compliance and enforcement efforts. How, then, should the nation’s cash-starved transit agencies — agencies that don’t suffer from major safety problems — pay for adherence to federal safety guidelines?

I certainly appreciate LaHood’s thinking, and in certain situations, standardized safety regulations make sense. But until train injuries increase and until the federal government can fund these safety projects, this is a policy we in New York should not support.