Service Cuts

When the MTA instituted its service cuts in late June, one change was long overdue. Instead of having the litte used V train terminate at 2nd Ave. in Manhattan, New York City Transit rearranged subway service so that the 6th Ave./Queens Boulevard Local route made use of the old Chrystie St. Cut, crossed the Williamsburg Bridge and terminated at Middle Village, the northern end of the BMT Myrtle Ave. line. Designed to alleviate overcrowding on the L and provide a one-seat ride to Midtown from areas of Brooklyn and Queens with high population growth, the rerouting has been a success.

Earlier this week, NY1’s newest transit beat reporter John Mancini hit the Orange M line to chat with riders about the service changes, and most believed it was a change for the better. “I live in Ridgewood, Queens, I work here in Greenwich Village. And basically now for the first time I have a one-seat ride to work. It’s taken probably 10 to 15 minutes off of my commute. I used to have to take the M to the F, which you could never get on at rush hour. So I’d have to take it down to Chambers Street and get on the 6. It took forever,” Christopher Crowe told Mancini.

The piece is a short one from Mancini, and in it, he talks to a few happy riders and a few others wary of the changes wrought by better transit service. “People who can’t afford to pay these rents will have to be moving out of the area. I mean because you are going to bring more of a crowd that can afford to pay this, and then the poor people that are here can’t afford to pay what they are paying now,” Ariel Lopez of Bushwick said.

In two quotes from two strangers on a train, Mancini captured both the essence of the service change and a problem with the MTA’s approach to service demand. When the V became the M, the Lower East Side and Alphabet City lost a train. No longer does every 6th Ave. local stop at 2nd Ave., the station closest to thousands of people who live on the far East Side. Those folks in a growing area were without one of their trains, and the neighborhood lost some of its bus service as well.

Across the Williamsburg Bridge, however, New Yorkers found reasons to cheer the service cuts. Although some Middle Village residents who work in Lower Manhattan or near Foley Square have a schleppy two-seat ride, those bound for Chelsea or Midtown no longer have to transfer or brave the crowds along the L train. The M has gone from a much-maligned shuttle to a useful train, and this was a service change that should have been made years ago. Unfortunately, the MTA is not in a position to adjust service to meet demand as fast as we’d like.

On the other hand, increased transit service comes with a cost. Neighborhoods are suddenly more accessible and more desirable for renters. Bushwick residents will see their rents creep up, and we can see in Brooklyn and Queens along the Myrtle Ave. line a harbinger of things to come for Second Ave. With more transit service, properties become more valuable, and thus, landlords can charge more. It’s an efficient market economy at work even if it penalizes those who were looking for a deal.

The Orange M will never please everyone, and at some point, if the MTA can introduce F express service in southern Brooklyn, the new routing will come under some form of scrutiny. For now, though, the new route is earning praise, and amidst a bad year for transit in New York City, this useful change is as welcome as any service cut can be.

When the MTA Board put its stamp on the four-year budget plan this week, it did so more with a grimace than with a smile. On one level, the plan is a strong indication of agency CEO and Chairman Jay Walder’s willingness to cut services, a necessary move his predecessor never implemented, but on the other hand, subway riders are losing more than just money. The authority has to cut some services that make commutes less painful and more pleasant. The subways are becoming austere.

“The foundation of this [Four-Year] Plan,” Walder said, “is the most aggressive and comprehensive overhaul in the history of the MTA. These actions have allowed us to hold true to our commitment regarding fare increases while maintaining the quantity and quality of service that New Yorkers rely on every day. The State’s ongoing fiscal crisis is one of many risks to the Plan, but with continued hard work and the participation of our labor unions I believe that this Plan can be achieved.”

The fares will be raised only 7.5 percent, an amount agreed upon in Albany as a precondition to the 2009 payroll tax funding plan, but the little things will go instead. We’ve already the V and W trains; we’ve already lost countless bus routes; we’ve already seen headways increase during off-peak hours. Now, as Andrew Grossman of The Wall Street Journal details, we’re going to see services scaled back as well.

The cost-cutting measures mentioned in Grossman’s article come from an engagement with the consulting firm Accenture. The savings to the MTA total nearly $202 million annually, but although economic efficient rules the day, Grossman notes that these cuts will “likely lead to an increase in the minor inconveniences of riding Greater New York’s mass transit system.” We’ve already heard about the plan to scale back on turnstile cleanliness, a move that will save the authority $1.8 million, and Grossman highlights a series of other cuts:

Once subway riders get through the turnstiles, they’ll encounter escalators with more debris on them. A program that started in 2007 aimed at cleaning escalators without taking them out of service ended on June 1. When riders get to the platform, they’ll hear fewer announcements about where trains are and whether they’ll be late. The MTA is cutting the number of stations that have dedicated announcers from 183 to 78.

Since June, there have been five fewer green-clad ushers pointing passengers confused by the hustle and bustle of Grand Central Terminal in the right direction. The reductions are part of staff cuts that will save $1.1 million this year and $1.9 million next year…

The Long Island Rail Road has cut its station pigeon-proofing in half. That could mean more droppings landing on passengers as birds nest in platform overhangs. The railroad will have fewer conductors on platforms at Jamaica Station. It won’t trim the trees and branches along its tracks as often as it did.

Commuters looking to railroad drink carts for comfort amid the cuts will find those more expensive, too. Prices for food and drink on the LIRR and Metro-North will go up 3% in September.

None of these cuts are as major as the June decrease in service levels, but combined, they create negative incentives to use transit. If stations are dingier and dustier, if food is more expensive, if people don’t find the system convenient, they will begin to eschew it for other means of transit or fewer trips away from home entirely. Maybe an outer borough denizen won’t spend money on a weekend in Manhattan; maybe a commuter will find it less appealing to wait at a station bombarded with pigeons.

The MTA has tried its best to whether the times, but without support from the state, the authority is left to enact its death by a thousand cuts. The system itself will be maintained, but the amenities will disappear as the trash piles up. “This is not a situation that we’ve created. It’s not a situation that’s occurring because our expenses are up,” Walder said at Wednesday’s board meeting. “It’s not a situation that’s occurring because our ridership is down. It’s a situation that is occurring because our subsidies have not been there and because money has been taken by the state.”

Reduced service on the Bx20 have left many Bronx residents paying two fares for their commutes.

As most straphangers come to terms with longer wait times and fewer seats on our post-service cut commutes, a few commuters who live in the harder-to-reach areas of New York City are finding life particularly tough in the post-cut environment. These are the people who once enjoyed bus service to the nearest subway but now must take a subway and a bus or two buses to reach a route that gets them to work. These are the people who have sufferd through service cuts only to be greeted with a de facto fare hike.

For the vast majority of those who are dependent upon the MTA, the fare hikes have resulted in less pleasant rides. As NY1 details today, the MTA’s new load guidelines have meant fewer, more crowded trains, and riders accustomed to a sit are finding themselves out of luck. “Forget about that,” Olmon Hairston said. “What seat? You have to be very strategic and find maybe the very back of the train or the very front of the train and position yourself in such a way so you can jockey for position.”

Those bemoaning about seats are the lucky ones. For many in the outer boroughs, the cost of travel just went up. Some riders have to pay two fares to cover the same distance. Clyde Haberman, with an assist from frequent SAS commenter Allan Rosen, explains the dual fare:

Allan Rosen, who worked for the authority for many years, called my attention to a little-discussed aspect of changes that led to the closing or altering of dozens of bus routes. Some New Yorkers may now be forced to pay double to get from Point A to Point B. They have in effect been placed in two-fare zones.

Until recently, for example, people traveling in Brooklyn from Bushwick to Crown Heights might have taken the B52 bus along Gates Avenue and transferred at Franklin Avenue to the B48, heading south toward Empire Boulevard. But the southbound B48 no longer goes that far. To get where they want, riders who transfer from the B52 to the B48 must switch again at Fulton Street to the B49, running on Bedford Avenue.

That means three buses. For those with per-ride MetroCards, that second transfer costs them an extra $2.25. Similar situations exist on other routes. Are vast numbers of riders affected? Probably not. “But the point isn’t how many people,” Mr. Rosen said. “It’s the fact that it’s unfair and no one should have to suffer like this.”

To a lesser extent, the same problem exists in Riverdale. Bronx residents no longer enjoy the Bx20 and now must either transfer to the Bx7 and pay again to board the A in Manhattan or take the bus to the 1 train to the A train, a rather lengthy trip from Riverdale.

Although few have solutions for this two-fare problem, watchdogs and other transit advocates are not happy with this turn of events. “It’s bad enough somebody has to transfer two times to get where they need to go. They shouldn’t have to pay two fares,” William Henderson, executive director of the MTA Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, said to New York 1.

For now, some of those riders can switch to unlimited ride MetroCards, but even that, based upon recent rumors, is a temporary solution. When the MTA implements a 90-ride cap on the cards early next year, the two-fare ride, a remnant of the pre-MetroCard days, will again become a reality. It is, as Haberman said, transit death by a thousand cuts.