Second Ave. Sagas

Category: Service Cuts

  • With service cuts looming, community activists mobilize

    As the looming March 25 deadline for the MTA’s Doomsday service cuts draws ever closer, community activists, New York residents and MTA employees are growing concerned that their bus lines, subway stations and jobs will be lost on the budget chopping block. Over the last few weeks, numerous groups have emerged fighting for the lines. Let’s take a peak at their efforts.

    In Manhattan, Save the M8 is a petition-based group run by activist Quinn Raymond. As its name entails, the group is dedicated to saving the M8, a lightly used bus line scheduled for total elimination in the Doomsday plan.

    “Eliminating the M8 would have a severely detrimental effect on the most vulnerable members of our community (children, seniors, the poor),” the group’s petition reads. “More broadly, we strongly believe that the State and City must find alternatives to MTA service cuts and fare increases at any cost. These alternatives could include tolls at East River crossings, taxing millionaires, and a corporate payroll tax.”

    In Brooklynm, GerritsenBeach.net is running a petition to save the B31 and B2 bus lines. The petition reads:

    We, the undersigned commuters, are calling on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to continue to operate regular bus service on the B31 and B2 lines. We are calling upon the MTA to main the B31 service after midnight, as this bus is the only way into Gerritsen Beach. We also demand that the MTA maintain weekend service on the B2 Line. Both of these bus lines service as a lifeline to the rest of the City for the people of Gerritsen Beach and Marine Park. The service is necessary to commuters, whether they be coming home late from work or shopping on the weekends, and is extremely important to a community like ours that is not served by the City’s subways.

    In Queens, another bus rider closer to the situation than most is issuing her protest too. Bria Sander, the 15-year-old daughter of MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander, has voiced her belief that weekend service on the Q76 and Q79 bus routes should not be cut. “The Legislature and governor should think about students who have to go to things on weekends,” she said. “They should think about people who take the bus and consider how many people are going to be upset because some things are going to be shut down.”

    Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Eagle writes about a whole slew of other protests targeted at bus and subway service cuts in various sections of Brooklyn. Harold Egeln highlights one of these groups:

    In Bay Ridge, “Save the B37 Third Avenue Bus” is among the demands on a petition circulated by Councilman Vincent Gentile and other lawmakers asking the MTA to drop plans to cut bus service in Bay Ridge along a bustling commercial strip. More than 1,000 signatures were collected on Gentile’s petition against the proposed complete elimination of the route between Shore Road in Bay Ridge and Court Street in Brooklyn Heights, as well as other service cuts.

    “When I talk to residents about the cuts, they are clearly desperate to save the transportation services they depend on for work, school and errands,” said Gentile. “The MTA’s plans would cut off thousands of people in south Brooklyn alone from crucial parts of their lives, like family, work and doctors.”

    Also out of Brooklyn comes word that residents are wary of staffing cuts. The Brooklyn Paper notes that some late-night straphangers are worried about the security and safety risks that could arise if MTA employees are not around to staff stations late at night. (Check back this afternoon for more on this angle.)

    Finally, MTA workers are protesting the job cuts as well. With plans to close nearly 100 station booths and turn some full-time booths into part-time operations, the workers are not happy.

    “You want to take those booths out of the system,” Maurice Jenkins, a transit worker, said to NY1. “You are going to take the eyes and ears away from the system. Everywhere you go they have signs that say ‘If you see something say something’. Well if there’s nobody there, who’s going to see something or say something?”

    I’m sure there are more out there, but these are the major efforts gaining ink over the last few weeks. For the most part, these protests are directed at our state officials who just so happen to be the people holding the keys to an MTA bailout. On Wednesday, when the MTA hosts its first public hearing, the protesters will be out in full force. As long as they yell loud enough and direct their collective ire at Albany, they just might rise up and be the public voices we need to save the MTA.

  • MTA sets March 25 as ‘drop-dead’ date

    On March 25, this Doomsday budget-Richard Ravitch-MTA drama will come to a head for it is on that day that the MTA Board will have to decide whether or not to approve draconian service cuts and rampant fare hikes. Start your clocks, folks, because we’re in for a wild political ride.

    “The drop-dead date is March 25, which is when the MTA board of directors meets and will vote whether to hit the riders with a 23 percent fare hike and massive service cuts or whether the state legislature and Governor Paterson will come to the rescue of the riding public,” Gene Russianoff, head of the Straphangers Campaign, said to NY1’s Bobby Cuza.

    Meanwhile, New York State leaders are already lining up behind the Ravitch proposals. Whether the state legislature will is another question entirely. Cuza has more on this story:

    The Paterson administration said it’s already drafting legislation to implement the recommendations of the Ravitch Commission, including a new payroll tax and new tolls on the East River bridges, to allow for a much smaller fare hike. The MTA will be sending a delegation to Albany next week to lobby legislators who go back to work this Wednesday…

    Last week, MTA Executive Director Lee Sander said the proposed hikes are not just a scare tactic. “If we don’t get the money from Albany, we would have to do this. Having said that, do I hope that this will have a stimulative effect on our legislators and further encourage them to pass the recommendations of the ravitch commission? Yes,” said Sander.

    While the MTA may also get money from a federal stimulus bill, it’s likely those dollars will go toward construction projects and won’t prevent a fare hike. As for the mayor, he said he has faith in Albany. “I’m optimistic that they’ll do something. But right now, if they don’t do anything, we’re going to have Draconian increases in fares and some cuts in services,” said Bloomberg.

    We’ll be hearing a lot of that over the next two and a half months as New York’s straphangers and rail commuters await for a final judgment.

    As this drama unfolds, it will be interesting to see how newspaper support lines up behind Ravitch. While The New York Times recently endorsed the Ravtich recommendations, other city newspapers haven’t embraced the full slate of tolls and taxes. Last week, the Downtown Express, while voicing approval of the tax-and-toll plan, urged state officials to consider higher on-street parking rates and vehicle registration fees as an alternate possibility.

    In the end, this will boil down to the political feasibility of the chosen plan. While only three percent of Brooklyn drivers would be hit by a toll while nearly 60 percent stand to lose out if service cuts and fare hikes come to pass, for some reason, tolls are a political no-no. They might best for the city, but politicians are loathe to wreck their re-election chances. Either way, the Doomsday clock is ticking, and in 78 days, we’ll know what the future holds for our subway system.

  • Inconvenient service cuts don’t save much money

    The MTA this week released more details about the planned service cutbacks that will arrive starting in July if no action is take on the Ravitch Report. The reports are all available here as PDF files, but I’m going to highlight the changes and cost savings here. As you’ll see, the subway cutbacks will impact a lot of people, and the aggregate annual savings just don’t seem that high to me.

    • Terminate the G at Court Square
      Net Annual Savings: $1.9 million
    • Operate the N via the Manhattan Bridge Late Nights
      Net Annual Savings: $390,000
    • Eliminate the W; extend the Q to Astoria Weekdays; operate the N local in Manhattan
      Net Annual Savings: $3 million
    • Eliminate M between Broad Street and Bay Parkway; eliminate Z and J/Z skip-stop service; and operate J local between Jamaica Center and Myrtle Avenue
      Net Annual Savings: $2.4 million
    • Operate 10-Minute headway on B division Weekends
      Net Annual Savings: $5 million
    • 125 percent of seated-load weekday middays and evenings
      Net Annual Savings: $8.4 million
    • 30-Minute Headways 2 a.m.-5 a.m.
      Net Annual Savings: $4.1 million
    • Total Net Annual Savings: $25.19 million

    Now, over the course of the week, the MTA estimates this will impact upwards of a million passengers per day trying to get anywhere in the city. The cost savings also represent about two percent of the total $1.2 billion operating budget gap.

    I understand that the MTA needs to close the budget gap as best it can, but I have to wonder if inconveniencing so many passengers is really the way to do it. I think these numbers show the extent and magnitude of the cuts. At some point, nearly every New Yorker will deal with longer wait times and reduced service options. They’ll face more crowded trains, fewer seats and more surly passengers. Is that really the best approach for the MTA? At a time when the agency needs sympathy, it will be antagonizing its riders.

    On the flip side, the numbers for personnel reduction are much higher. New York City Transit alone is looking at over $100 million in cost savings alone through managerial cutbacks and station staffing positions. I’d rather see more of those than what seem like minimal savings through service cuts whose reverberations will be felt throughout the whole system.

  • Daily News: The MTA’s Doomsday scenario

    For the last few days, The Daily News has teased New Yorkers with references to the MTA’s “Doomsday plans.” The paper has run stories on the MTA’s potentially axing station agents and raising the base fare to $3.00.

    Today, the tabloid dropped a bombshell: Reportedly, the MTA’s Doomsday scenario includes substantial service reductions and whole scale line eliminations. The paper’s sidebar tells the story:

    Subways

    • W and Z lines shut down completely.
    • No more express J-train service, makes all local stops.
    • G line nearly halved with the northern terminal being Court Square, Long Island City, Queens, at all times. No more service from Court Square to Forest Hills.
    • M line halved, making stops only between Metropolitan Ave., Queens, and Broad St., Manhattan.
    • B line trains arrive every 10 minutes weekends, up from 8 minutes.
    • Overnight: Scheduled gaps between all trains running between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. increased to 30 minutes from 20 minutes.
    • Midday: Schedules changed – less frequent trains from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. – system wide so that trains carry more passengers: 125% of the seating capacity, up from current guideline of 100%.

    Buses: A few dozen bus routes eliminated overnight and weekends, including X27 and X28 weekends. Bus routes targeted for less frequent service generally are those with lower ridership numbers or where subway trains are an option. A few routes running weekdays axed.

    This, of course, is terrible news, but I am wondering how accurate it is. Fewer trains would leave many New Yorkers disgruntled. And while the Daily News reports that B service on the weekends should slow down, savvy straphangers know that the B doesn’t run on the weekends.

    Jeremy Soffin, deputy director for media relations and the MTA’s press secretary, issued a statement on behalf of the MTA a short while ago. He said:

    “We will not comment on the specifics of gap closing measures until the budget is presented to the MTA Board on Thursday morning. As we have said previously, plummeting tax revenues have increased the MTA’s deficit to $1.2 billion. The MTA began belt tightening long before the current financial crisis, and budget cuts start with further significant administrative and managerial cuts. The size of the deficit will also require a combination of fare/toll increases and service cuts, which will be presented on Thursday. We await the release of the Ravitch Commission recommendations in December and hope they will be implemented to restore financial stability to the MTA.”

    We’ll know for sure on Thursday after the MTA board meeting if these plans line up with the MTA’s reality. If they do, these plans could mean one of two things. Either the MTA is presenting this Doomsday scenario to get the attention of the people with the purse strings. In that regard, this move would be fairly politically motivated to get more money for the subways. Or else, the MTA is really in dire straits, and New Yorkers who rely on the subways for transportation are in for a world of inconvenience and declining service.

  • Behind-the-scenes services facing the budget axe

    The subways certainly aren’t known for their cleanliness. (Photo by flickr user Lanamaniac)

    The MTA knows that it needs to increase subway service while facing a budget deficit. While bus expansion plans have kept pace with population growth, subway service hasn’t followed suit. Now, after one fare hike and with the threat of another looming, the MTA is going forward with some service expansion plans.

    Meanwhile, the MTA is also facing a budget deficit that could see the agency’s bottom line reach record levels of debt. With Wednesday’s MTA Board meeting set to focus on budgetary concerns, New York City Transit is gearing up to approve its own budget with various services — but not subway service — facing the axe.

    amNew York’s Matthew Sweeney took an in-depth look at how New York City Transit plans to save money behind the scenes to not only provide riders with more service but to meet budget deficits that could reach a billions dollars. He reports:

    New York City Transit is expected to vote Monday on its budget-savings plan that would halt plans to repair 19 stations, put off paint jobs for flaking elevated structures, and institute a more “efficient” way of cleaning subway cars…

    Many of the cuts, however, will take place behind the scenes and delay needed repairs to transit buildings that keep the system running, such as tunnel vents, bus depots, and a subway-car overhaul shop…

    Another $8.9 million in savings will come from the MTA’s operating budget. The savings, which will fund increased service on certain train lines, include subway car cleaning and quality control.

    For their part, the MTA says that riders won’t notice the changes brought about by the cuts. “None of the reductions will have an impact on what riders see,” Paul Fleuranges, NYC Transit spokesman, said to Sweeney in an e-mail.

    I hope that is indeed the case, but I worry when I hear that subway car cleaning efforts may be re-examined. Subway cars aren’t that clean to begin with; my Saturday night Q train this week was a mess. Anything worse would make the cars resemble the T cars in Boston.

    While the MTA will go ahead with the vital projects — the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation, for example, is not in jeopardy — I’m guessing that the planned improvements along the Q/B Brighton line will be shelved for now. Local officials will be up-in-arms about these cuts.

    Overall, the MTA believes that these cuts to some capital projects could clear up $2 to $3 billion in savings to meet budget deficits in its current plan. There is a chance that big-ticket items — Second Ave. Subway, East Side Access plan — could face delays as well, but the MTA is hoping to avoid that scenario. The city needs subway expansion plans, and with the government set to contribute money earmarked for these projects, it’s growing harder for the MTA to delay or even shelve them entirely as they’ve done in the past.

    In the end, the MTA is technically cutting service. But as we originally feared, they aren’t cutting subway service. Instead, they’re cutting services while adding more trains, and we’re left questioning Albany’s commitment to funding the MTA and public transit in New York. As MTA Board member Andrew Albert said to Sweeney, “You have to be concerned about the lack of funding support from the state and the city. They want all of these improvements and then they scream when we raise fares. They have to come up with more money.”

    Amen.

  • Brooklyn riders, citing Queens service, defend their trains

    Two weeks ago, the F train came under attack from riders in Brooklyn who noticed fewer, more crowded trains. These riders, rightly so, were upset with the MTA for cutting back service in an area of the city suffering from gentrification and a population boom.

    This week, the F train riders responded to the original article in The Brooklyn Paper with a reply that, at the risk pissing off my fellow denizens of Brooklyn, is nearly as short-sighted as the MTA’s attempts to cut F train service without really acknowledging this service cut.

    Jasmine Melzer of Park Slope wrote to Gersh Kuntzman’s paper. (Scroll down for her letter.)

    I date the beginning of these problems to the introduction of the V train. Ever since the V came into existence, I have wondered whether Brooklyn was ever represented at the table that gave this service to Queens.

    Elementary math tells you that two won’t go into one. For Brooklynites standing on Manhattan subway platforms, watching useless, empty V trains heading for Second Avenue is a constant source of frustration…

    For the MTA spokeswoman to simply negate the possibility of either extending V service or utilizing the existing express tracks is to ignore the urgent need of a Brooklyn population that is nearing its historical peak.

    Melzer, citing the popularity of the MetroCard as the reason for the subway’s new-found popularity (uh, what?), also calls for express service on the F out to Coney Island. Now, on the surface, Melzer’s ideas seem fairly straightforward. They may even make sense in the grand scheme of the MTA. But it doesn’t hold up.

    (more…)

  • Waitin’ around for an ‘F’-in train

    When last Captain Obvious paid us a visit two weeks ago, the good Captain noted that bus schedules around the city were wrong. Big surprise there.

    Well, the Captain has returned this week. The story: Those subway schedules available on the MTA’s website aren’t too accurate either. Stop the presses.

    In all seriousness, this news is hardly a shocker; the MTA’s schedules are notorious punchlines. But The Brooklyn Paper actually managed to turn this into an interesting story:

    During the morning and evening rush, an F train is supposed to arrive every four to six minutes, according to MTA timetables. But a Brooklyn Paper reporter found that on most days, the gap is a lot longer.

    A few minutes extra may not seem like a big deal, but a two-minute addition to the scheduled four-minute gap means that, on average, there are five fewer trains per hour — about 40 cars — than the schedule says there should be.

    Since each car can hold 175 people, those extra five trains during the 8-9 am rush can carry up to 7,000 people.

    Now, I live near that F train stop, but I never take it to work. I find the B/Q stop on the other side of the North Slope area to be much more reliable. I can take one of two trains into Manhattan during rush hour; the wait is never too long, and the trains, while crowded, aren’t jammed pack as the F train generally is.

    But this overcrowding of the F train and the frequent delays are a cause for concern. Population, as the article notes, along the F train corridor has exploded since the MTA set the schedules a few years ago, and this boom shows no signs of slowing. These areas along the F train are among the strongest waves of gentrification into the heart of Brooklyn. This leaves the F, already ranked 11th out of 22 by the Straphangers Campaign, floundering a bit.

    The Brooklyn Paper issues some sensible suggestions for expanding service along the F line. The MTA could extend V train service past 2nd Ave. in Manhattan; they could permanently extend the temporary G train extension to Church Ave.; or they could simply make sure the trains run on time.

    The MTA, of course, says nothing is wrong with the current F train service, but maybe they should try waiting at 7th Ave. in Park Slope during the morning commute for a train.

  • MTA fare hikes on hold for rest of decade?

    Good news for those of us who ride the buses and subways today: The MTA won’t be raising fares next year and could hold off on fare hikes until after 2010.

    Here’s what The Daily News had to say:

    The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is finalizing its 2007 budget and plans to vote by Christmas on a spending plan that holds the line on bus and subway fares, board sources said last night.

    The final financial package, expected to be unveiled today and approved next month, also holds steady ticket prices for Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, as well as tolls for the MTA’s bridges and tunnels, the sources said.

    MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said this year he didn’t believe the $240 million in hikes – which had been on the books – would be needed because the economy, particularly the real estate market, was doing better than expected. The agency gets revenues from real estate transactions.

    Coupled with the lack of fare hikes comes better news about the $20 million in proposed service cuts originally announced in September. According to MTA board sources, those cuts are off the table, The Daily News also reports. Originally, these cuts were planned as follows, according to The Times:

    The cuts would add one to five minutes to wait times on many subway lines and local bus routes during off-peak periods. For subways, it would mean that on weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., all trains would run every 10 minutes, according to authority budget documents. Evening and late-night waiting times would be from 10 to 20 minutes.

    Somehow, the money will flow in anyways, but now we the riders won’t be forced to wait longer or pay more.