Second Ave. Sagas

Category: Service Cuts

  • Revisiting the economics and politics of student transit

    Student protests and parental complaints about the MTA’s proposed student MetroCard cuts are on the verge of taking center stage this week as the MTA Board gears up to hold hearings on its slate of service cuts. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has a prime to the hearings, and I wanted to take a few minutes today to once again revisit the issue of free student transportation in New York City.

    Since the MTA announced its plans to cut free student travel, advocacy groups and students have been up in arms. Just last week, a group of students delivered a letter to the MTA Board, a protest I said had the right message but the wrong audience. (Streetsblog too questioned that protest and the head of the Transit Riders Council urged the students to target City Hall.) Yet, before the traveling service cut circus hits a borough near you, let’s revisit a pair of arguments that continue to plague the student MetroCard debate.

    1. The city and state are the ones who should be funding transit and not the MTA

    Over the last few months, MTA officials have continually tried to lay blame for the student transit funding disaster on the state and with good reason. “I would love to see students have free trips to school but I believe that’s a responsibility that the city and state have to come to,” MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder said last week.

    “We agree that school children should not have to pay to get to school, but funding this service is the responsibility of the State and City,” Jeremy Soffin, agency spokesperson, said to me recently as well. “The MTA has been called the yellow school bus for New York City, and that’s a good analogy. All over the state school kids get picked up by yellow school buses, and they don’t pay to ride. But the bus doesn’t show up unless state or local government pays the bus company.”

    The reality is that the state and city have failed in their responsibility to fund transit. When the Student MetroCard program started, it was, as Metro reminded us today and I wrote in December, set to cost $135 million, and the city, state and MTA were to carry equal funding burdens of $45 million. That was in 1995, and since then, the city has never increased its contributions while the state’s have declined to $6 million. The MTA is left covering the costs, and as the below graph shows, those costs have soared.

    The MTA knows it can recoup nearly $214 million in revenue by the 2011-2012 school year by charging students, and unless the city and state want to pay for student transit — a burden the state and localities carry elsewhere through New York — the MTA just should not be expected to pay.

    2. A family will have to pay $687 per school year per student for transit

    Some transit advocates have alleged that full-fare student transit will cost a family $1068 per student per year, but that number is simply wrong. That is the cost of 12 30-day unlimited ride MetroCards — or one year’s worth of travel. The only problem with that assumption is that students aren’t in school 12 months a year. In New York, students have 180 school days over nine months.

    As I explored in depth in December, paying only for two rides per student per day for school days only would cost a family $687.90 per student. Paying for unlimited rides throughout the school year would cost just over $800 per student. For many families, these costs are a significant burden, but the true cost of transit to and from school is 64 percent lower than what may would have you believe. It’s irresponsible math to allege otherwise.

    Some parents may claim that the Student MetroCard program allows their student to travel elsewhere after school. As long as that third trip is to an activity, then students are permitted to do so with their cards. Otherwise, the MTA is simply subsidizing free transit that isn’t related to school at all. The agency shouldn’t be expected to do that.

    In the end, many New Yorkers, such as Michael Gould-Wartofsky who wrote a Huffington Post column on the topic, will try to blame the MTA. This is indicative of the MTA’s fat-cat culture, they’ll say, and it shows a callous disregard for students and families — especially lower class students and families — in New York City. It’s nothing of the sort. It is but another example of the why politicians scapegoat the MTA, and it’s one that should not be tolerated.

    “Nowhere else in the United States is the public transportation system responsible for the costs of transporting students to school,” MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said. “In other municipalities throughout the country the local government will provide that transportation free of charge, and in most cases, provide a fleet of yellow buses.”

  • Walder vows layoffs in 60 days as unions protest

    Following this morning’s meeting, Jay Walder spent a few minutes talking to reporters about the upcoming layoffs soon to impact the MTA. The personnel reductions will go into effect in 60 days, and the 1000 jobs on the chopping block will be the first in what could be a wave of layoffs this year.

    The agency, said Walder, is now facing a $750 million deficit that has emerged since December, and the agency looks to save money both for its 2010 fiscal year and going forward, it will have to learn to operate as a leaner organization. “The reality is that the vast majority of our costs are labor,” Walder said at his press conference. “[The MTA’s savings] will come in the form of layoffs.”

    For now, the first round of cuts for New York City Transit will target approximately 500 station agents and 600 administrative personnel. The Long Island Rail Road announced that it would shave 150 jobs as well. There, 90 administrative positions will go, and 60 engineers and conductors will lose their jobs as well. “My sense is that there will be additional staff reductions from consolidations that the MTA will be focused on,” LIRR President Helena Williams said to Newsday today.

    During his press conference, Walder repeatedly stressed how the MTA will follow agreed-upon collective bargaining provisions for layoffs. “We will be following all of the negotiated arrangements,” he said more than once. According to a Pete Donohue article, the TWU’s agreement with the MTA once had a no-layoffs provisions, but it was “traded away” during the 2002 labor negotiations. The MTA does not have to offer severance to its unionized employees, and the severance package for the axed administrative personnel will be based on senior and will not exceed $20,000, Walder said.

    The TWU, meanwhile, is attempting to evaluate its position. According to a report this morning in amNew York, the MTA offered to avert these layoffs in exchange for a pay freeze, but the TWU rejected that offer. After engaging in a legal fight for its raises — raises that are costing the MTA $100 million in money it doesn’t have this year — the TWU is not going to give those up so quickly.

    Yet at a time when agency finances are sour and everyone else is paying the price, the TWU is celebrating its raises and vowing a fight. In a website announcement informing its members of higher salaries, TWU President John Samuelsen promised to combat the layoffs. “I realize that it has been a long and frustrating wait” for the raises, he said. “But the wait is over. We can now move on to devote our full attention to current battle to preserve transit jobs and service, and to prevent the MTA from balancing its self-inflicted budget wounds on the backs of Local 100 members and New York’s working families.”

    Considering how the MTA is balancing its Albany-inflicted budget wounds on the backs of every single transit-dependent New Yorker, that’s a bold claim by Samuelsen. Still, I would expect nothing less from a union president who must protect his members’ interests, jobs and money.

    These cuts, though, are just the first of many. During his press conference, Walder did not beat around the bush. As the service cuts are implemented, he said, the MTA will probably have to lay off more workers, unionized or not. The agency is planning to overhaul the way it does business administratively, and unless Albany is willing to step in and do what it must, we will soon see an MTA operating with fewer services and far fewer employees.

  • Cuts made official as Walder pledges to reduce all costs

    MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder officially announced plans to eliminate 1000 MTA jobs as part of the agency’s comprehensive cost-cutting measures designed to close a $761 million budget gap. As I reported late last night, the layoff plans will include 600 administrative jobs and 500 station agent positions. The station agent positions were slated for elimination through attrition, but the MTA’s dire financial situation has forced the authority to speed up the timetable for cutting personnel levels.

    “The State’s economic crisis demands that the MTA move quickly and decisively to cut costs, and that is exactly what we are doing,” Walder said in a statement. “These layoffs are extremely painful, but we must live within our means and make the tough decisions that businesses and families across New York are making.” The agency noted that it would “comply with applicable statutory and collective bargaining obligations” for those unionized workers due to lose their jobs and that non-union workers would be offered severance packages.

    Meanwhile, as part of his overall push to change the way the MTA operates and improve its financially accountability and efficiency, Walder promised more cost-cutting measures in the future. If he is successful, Walder could, despite having to inflict pain upon riders and workers, vastly improve the beleaguered authority. “This is just the beginning of a comprehensive overhaul of how the MTA does business,” he said. “We will be reducing overtime, consolidating redundant functions and working with suppliers to lower costs. We will not stop until I can say that every dollar the MTA receives is spent wisely.”

  • With personnel cuts on tap, the station agent debate arises

    As the MTA looks to close an ever-widening budget gap, the agency will have to trim from every department, and everyone involved in the daily operations of our public transportation network will feel the pain. From those of us rely on the subways and buses to get to and from the office and school to those of us who work for the MTA, we all will pay the price. We’ve heard a lot about the authority’s plans to cut transit service, and today, the MTA will announce a sweeping set of personnel cuts designed to save $50 million.

    The story is a big one. MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder is going to propose laying off more than 1000 workers. If all goes according to his plan, 450 of those workers fired will be unionized station agents. Another 600 — or 15 percent of the MTA’s non-unionized workforce — will be let go from various administrative positions. The major news outlets broke this story late last night, and many of the local 10 and 11 o’clock newscasts featured it at or near the top of the hour. For an agency saddled with what many believe to be an unmanageably and unnecessarily large workforce, these cuts are but a start in Walder’s fat-trimming efforts.

    Of course, these cuts won’t go down easily. While Walder has the discretion to fire non-unionized MTA employees, the TWU has vowed to fight cuts no matter how small a percentage of the unionized workforce these cuts represent. Originally, these workers were to be let go via attrition, and the layoffs add a political element to the budgetary battles. “If they announce layoffs, they are going to be hearing from us,” TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said to The Times.

    As always, Samuelsen, protective of his jobs, grabbed the upper hand politically and framed this debate as one involving the safety of the MTA’s riders. Focusing on the MTA’s decision to target station agents, he bashed the supposed safety aspect of person-less stations. “Their idea of customer service is digitalized signage, rather than a human being protecting you against crime or directing you when you’re lost in the subway,” he said.

    This isn’t a new argument in any sense, and yet, it’s one with which I find myself continually fighting. From a safety perspective, the station agents serve one of two purposes: Either their presence alone is a deterrent to potential criminals or straphangers feel safer knowing that a station agent is present whether or not these agents do anything to increase subway safety. The real answer probably lies in the intersection between those two roles, but there is a problem with that assumption: The station agents are not legally obligated to do anything, and they can’t see the platforms beyond the fare control areas.

    Over the last few years, we’ve heard a lot about the station agents as the MTA eliminated many of them in late 2008. Since then, the pro-station agent crowd has defended them on the grounds of safety. But in a landmark case a few years ago, a New York state court found that the station agents had no affirmative duty to act if they knew someone in their station was in trouble. They have no sidearms and can do nothing about a crime in progress. Meanwhile, vast stretches of these stations are invisible to the booth agents, and in those cases, the workers won’t prevent any crime at all except as they would serving as a potential deterrent. With subway crime at all time lows, continued enforcement, and not the presence of workers who can’t do much, is the key to keeping the system safe.

    Meanwhile, these employees, who field an average of around four customer requests per shift, would help out in situations involving lost passengers or those with bulky luggage. Yet, as the numbers show, those occasions are rare indeed. The MTA won’t eliminate station agents in high-traffic areas with large numbers of travelers. The agents instead will vanish from stations that won’t frequently miss them.

    The MTA is up a proverbial creek without a paddle these days. The authority is broke, and New York’s politicians are searching for any way possible to avoid funding transit. If these workers are the sacrifice the city must pay, until the politicians are willing to find a lasting solution, we will have to suffer through a system with fewer station agents.

  • Balancing the budget: fare hikes vs. service cuts

    At the end of this post is a poll about how you think the MTA should balance its budget. Scroll down or click here to vote.

    For 44 years, from 1904 to 1948, subway fares in New York City cost riders one nickel. The Buffalo Head became the symbol of a subway ride for millions of New Yorkers, and by 1948, the five-cent fare had become a political issue. Those running the city’s transit systems could not sustain the system on five cents per ride — or the 1948 equivalent of two cents in 1904 money — but politicians ran populist campaigns focused around saving the low subway fare.

    If that sounds familiar, well, that’s because it is. History has a funny way of repeating itself in local politics, and the subways have long been used as a political football of sorts. Fiscal improprieties and fare hikes have been the cause of politicians for decades even as the very same politicians refuse to find adequate funds for the underground veins of New York City.

    Recently, we’ve seen all sorts of fare and fiscal shenanigans involving the MTA. When the Board had to raise fares in 2008 to cover an expected economic shortfall, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer pushed to maintain a $2 base fare while upping the price on the rest of the MTA’s fare options. In 2009, the MTA raised fares by approximately 10 percent as part of the Albany funding package.

    And so we arrive in 2010. Nearly a year ago, the agency vowed to avoid a fare hike this year, and we’re seeing that political drama in the form of service cuts play out. Were a fare hike on the table, the agency would be in line to raise the fares in four consecutive years and potentially five out of seven years for a biannual cost-of-living fare adjustment is likely in 2011. This hike — a centerpiece of the Ravitch Report designed to free the MTA from some economic uncertainty — remains up to the discretion of Albany as Ravitch’s recommendations were not adopted.

    As the MTA unveiled its fiscal problems to the city in December, the agency clearly did not believe it to be politically expedient to put forth a budget balanced on the backs of a fare hike. In fact, not once did anyone at the authority mention a fare hike. Rather, as the end-of-year returns and 2010 projections rolled in, the MTA quickly embraced service cuts. Although many of these service cuts could be viewed as refinements that should better help the MTA address transit needs, the fact remains that these are cuts through and through. In particular, the Student MetroCards are a prime example of that trimming.

    Over the last few weeks, many have asked me why the agency didn’t consider a fare hike and what a hike proposal would potentially look like. We’ll start with the latter question. In general, a one percent increase in fare yield — or money collected — will lead to an increase in revenue at the MTA of approximately $50 million. To cover the 2010 budget gap — estimated right now at around $350-$400 million — the MTA would have to increase fare yield by eight percent. That doesn’t correspond directly to a fare increase of eight percent because of the agency’s discounts, but we could assume an increase of 10 percent. A 30-Day Unlimited Ride Card would probably be nearing that magical $100 mark, and everything else would increase accordingly.

    So why didn’t the MTA go this route? As I explained above, politics played no small role in this decision. The agency seemingly did not believe it could renege on its promise to avoid a fare hike this year, and it had a better card to play. By throwing down the Student MetroCard issue and forcing politicians to respond to charges of underfunding student transportation, the MTA could hope to generate more political agita that should result in more student funds. At the least, it’s a safer bet than anything fare related. There, politicians would stomp their feet and approve another fare hike.

    In the end, though, we pay through service cuts. We will see train headways increased, load guidelines revised, neighborhood bus routes restructured and eliminated and service generally slowed down. Eventually, we’ll have to pay higher fares or else the MTA won’t be able to sustain an adequate transit network for New York City. With these cuts, the authority is beginning to run up against that boundary.

    So in the grand tradition of bloggers who don’t have the right answer to tough questions, I leave you with a poll. Would you rather have a service cut this year or fare hikes? I err on the side of fare hikes simply because services rolled back take a long time to restore; the fares will eventually go up anyway. Not everyone agrees.

  • The dangerous allure of a quick stimulus fix

    Over the last few weeks, as the MTA’s funding woes have risen to the surface, a debate over the use of stimulus funds to cover the budget deficit has emerged. On the one side are the City Council and Gene Russianoff’s Straphangers Campaign who support using stimulus funds to cover the gap. On the other are, for example, the Regional Plan Association and I believe it to be a bad idea. Today, we see exactly why it’s a dangerous plan to put forward.

    On its surface, Gene Russianoff’s idea almost makes sense. The MTA is legally allowed to take 10 percent of its stimulus dollars to cover operating costs. Of course, the capital fund too is stretched to its limit, and future investment in the system even in the face of temporary operating shortfalls is a key component to the long-term health of New York City. If the Russianoff Plan is enacted, the MTA would be robbing its future self to cover numerous services that deserve to be reexamined anyway.

    One of my counterarguments to the Russianoff plan is the way it provides only a quick fix. The MTA has an institutional funding problem in that the city and state are shirking their responsibilities to the organization, and a one-off stimulus fix does nothing to address those problems. An economic crisis should be the time for New York to establish a better approach toward funding transit.

    I’ve also argued that politicians will embrace the stimulus funding plan because it allows them to disregard further their duties toward the MTA. Why bother trying to solve a problem when they can just plug a hole for one year? Not surprisingly, that — with a twist — is exactly what some upstate politicians are trying to do. As the Poughkeepsie Journal reported earlier this week, five U.S. House representatives have asked Gov. David Paterson to reduce the MTA’s payroll tax and use stimulus funds to cover this year’s gap.

    I won’t mince words here: This is a terrible idea. It would take another $110 million away from the MTA at a time when the authority is already running deficits of around $300-$400 million. It would leave the MTA with less guaranteed money after 2010. At Mobilizing the Region, Steven Higashide says it best: “This would blow a hole in future MTA budgets, since it would replace yearly tax revenues with one-year stimulus funds.”

    Higashide’s Tri-State Transportation Campaign is one of the co-signers of the Russianoff Plan, but it is a plan that puts more faith in our politicians than they seem to deserve. The use of stimulus funds to hide this year’s budget gap is a dangerous move to make, and our politicians are slowly starting to show us why.

  • Fighting for and fighting against the MTA

    Slated for a late-June elimination, Staten Island’s S60 bus route is a questionable one in any economy. (Source: NYC Transit’s PDF of planned service changes)

    Staten Island’s S60 bus is a very curious route. It runs between Sunnyside and Grymes Hill with stops at St. John’s University and Wagner College. It operates during the week from 6:15 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and on the weekends from 10 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. Notable about this route, though, is how no one rides this bus. Average weekday ridership is just 210 passengers per day, and Saturday and Sunday combined see just 90 total riders. It is nearly a private bus for those who get on.

    For the MTA, operating the S60 for its 1140 passengers a week — or fewer passengers than all but seven buses see during an average weekday — isn’t cheap. Systemwide, the total cost per ride to the MTA is $2.73, but for the weekday S60 runs, the total cost per rider is $12.98. Over the weekend, the bus costs $25.69 to operate. Even in a good economy, I’d have to question the need for or wisdom behind this bus route.

    So then it is more than a little strange to hear transit rider advocates speak about the elimination of this route — the city’s least used and most expensive local bus — as though it will be missed. In a statement about how “the cuts still stink,” Gene Russianoff and the Straphangers Campaign used the S60 to highlight how the bus cuts will impact New Yorkers.

    “As for bus service, go through your own 150-page list of cuts,” the group said in a statement. “Thousands of your bus riders will be forced to walk many minutes to a different bus line, make extra transfers, suffer longer waits or have go out of their way to get to their destination. Take, for example, the S-60 that goes to the top of Staten Island’s Grymes Hill. Your accompanying text says that it will be eliminated and ‘customers would be required to walk 12 to 20 minutes’ to a different route.”

    This is a rather egregious example of a service cut for anyone to highlight and few should, as I mentioned, object to this cut. Furthermore, the 12 to 20 minutes of estimated increased walking time are the highest in the book. Most other bus riders would have to walk approximately five to 10 minutes out of their way, and many would suffer through longer wait times rather than longer walks. Make no mistake about it: The service cuts are going to slam bus riders, but the S60 makes a mountain of a mole hill that houses just 1140 riders every seven days.

    To circle back around to the title on the post, I often wonder against whom or for whom the city’s more vocal transit advocates and politicians are fighting. In its release yesterday, the Straphangers Campaign spent five paragraphs highlighting the ways in which we the commuting public will suffer and one paragraph calling upon the MTA to shift stimulus funds to cover the operating deficit (a plan with which I disagree). At the same time as the group is fighting against the MTA, it is also trying to fight for the MTA, and they’re not alone in this odd dance.

    In Brooklyn, Assembly representative Joan Millman engaged in the same two-headed attack-and-support effort. She first called upon the MTA to save the Carroll Garden bus routes. “We are urging the MTA to abandon its plans to cut bus service to this neighborhood and keep our full service,” she said. At the same time, she is trying to drum up support in Albany for a restoration of the commuter tax that would generate $300 million or a parking permit program that would funnel money to the MTA. She is one of many who control the purse strings, and if she’s serious about stopping the cuts, getting more money to the agency would do the trick.

    In the end, politicians and advocates simply cannot have both ways. They cannot slam the MTA for passing cuts when the authority’s back is to the wall and then turn around to propose another fee-based funding mechanism. Rather, these politicians and advocates need to attack the route of the problem — a broken political system in Albany that leaves the MTA perennially underfunded and looking for handouts. Only then will the MTA enjoy the support it needs. Only then will the MTA be able to offer more service with more money instead of cutting service to save ever penny.

  • In service cut plan, bus riders hit hardest

    The M10 is one of numerous city buses to see its route altered. (Source: New York City Transit)

    In the overall scheme of the New York City public transportation landscape, buses are often considered the forgotten step child of the transit network. Because of long-standing stereotypes that unfairly label buses as an inferior means of travel that only those of the lower class use, buses have not earned much respect in New York City. We see that in the way Select Bus Service plans do not include separated routes, and we see that in the way Albany has yet to approve camera enforcement measures for bus lanes in the city. They don’t get no respect.

    Yet, buses are a key component to life in New York City. Every weekday, 2.324 million New Yorkers ride the bus. Some are the elderly or handicapped, and the subway infrastructure is simply not an option. Others ride buses for the direct connections they provide between adjacent neighborhoods; others use buses to get to subway lines; and still others resort to buses because they simply have too many grocery bags to haul down to the subway and the bus is right there. A third of New York City Transit’s passengers can’t be wrong.

    The bus though remain shrouded in mystery. The borough’s maps are incomprehensible. Bus routes overlap in weird and inexplicable ways, and the schedules published on bus stops are oftentimes simply wrong. If anything is indicative of the way the MTA simply sucked up private transit companies, the buses are it. And now, many of the buses are on the chopping block.

    When the MTA unveiled its revised package of subway cuts on Friday afternoon, I focused on the subway service changes. Those are, after all, the sexy part of the package of cuts. Everyone likes to hear about the Chrystie St. Cut, and few really care if a bus route they’ll never ride in Eastern Queens is combined with another route they’ll never ride. Yet, the buses are bearing the brunt of the Transit cuts.

    New York City Transit is cutting $77.6 million from its budget via service cuts. The subway changes we discussed on Friday will account for just $17.6 million of that savings, and changes to the city’s bus routes will account for the remaining $60 million. No borough is spared an extensive restructuring of the bus cuts, and 14 routes in total will be eliminated. Another eight routes — including Manhattan’s M8 route, subject of multiple protests in 2009 — will be cut during the weekend. In total, 41 weekday routes and 32 weekend bus lines will be partially discontinued or restructured in such a way that other bus routes will be extended to cover the same territory.

    On paper, it’s hard to make sense of all of the changes. I can’t do justice to the $60 million in discontinuations, restructuring and replacements simply because I’m not as conversant in the ins and outs of the city’s rather inefficient bus map. Instead, as an example of Transit’s approach to these cuts, let’s explore how my neighborhood — Brownstone Brooklyn — will be impacted by the cuts. For those who want to see the city-wide impact, Transit’s PDF of the service changes delves in depth, and I’ll conclude this piece with some thoughts on the bus changes. (more…)

  • MTA unveils more efficient slate of service cuts

    A month ago, the MTA had a legal obligation to pass a balanced budget, and in the face of a budget gap that may reach nearly $400 million, the agency simply passed a series of cuts that resembled those put forward in late 2008. Following that vote, MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder directed those at the MTA to reassess the service cuts and set for the necessary savings in such a way that will have as little impact on the MTA’s customers as popular.

    This afternoon, the agency unveiled those cuts, and barring an economic miracle, they will go into effect in late June. Although the cuts are still reductions in transit offerings and straphangers will see slightly less frequent service and slightly more crowded trains, the latest iteration are designed to minimize the pain and provide more efficient service. Many overnight bus routes have been spared the chopping block, and others have been restructured to ensure that no one is more than a quarter of a mile away from transit in high-density neighborhoods and half a mile away in lower density neighborhoods. As service cuts go, things could have been far, far worse.

    As part of the announcement about the new cuts, the MTA has updated its website with some very complete information packets, all of which are available right here. The booklets feature extensive data about bus ridership levels and the cost to the MTA per bus route. “While the cuts in funding to the MTA require painful actions, we have worked hard to limit the impact on customers,” Walder said. “We are now making an unprecedented level of information available to the public so our customers understand exactly how these proposals were developed and the impacts they will have well in advance of the public hearings.”

    I’ll be delving into the bus cuts over the weekend. They’re rather extensive, and the MTA should be applauded for the rigorous examination and overhaul to which they subjected their original plans. Numerous bus routes, particularly in Brownstone Brooklyn, have been restructured to provide continuous service, and although some routes were eliminated entirely, those featured some of the lowest ridership figures in the city.

    Furthermore, the MTA showed a willingness to respond to complaints raised at last year’s public hearings. Last year, vocal groups of bus supporters showed up, and the new plans reflect those demands. The M8 and M10, both scheduled for elimination last year, have been partially restored. The M10 will no longer run south of 59th St., and the M8 will operate on weekdays only. The crosstown buses through Central Park, the subject of a piece in The Times a few weeks ago, won’t be cut either.

    So how then are the changes configured on the subway side of the equation? To find out, you’ll have to click through the jump. (more…)

  • Ahead of announcements on new cuts, hearing dates set

    Later this afternoon, the MTA will unveil its reconfigured slate of service cuts. We’ve been waiting on these cuts for a while, and as news has trickled in, we know, for example, that express buses will be axed and that the V will run along the M line via the Chrystie St. Cut. I’ll have a full report later, but Michael Grynbaum previews the new plan. Generally, the overnight bus routes through Central Park will be spared and so will the Z train. The W will be eliminated, and off-peak trains will run less frequently.

    Meanwhile, as the MTA begins the politically wrangling over its funding, the authority has set dates for hearings on the service cuts, Heather Haddon reported late last night. Unfortunately, the agency is planning on holding two hearings a day so not all officials can attend each session. On March 1, Westchester and Long Island will host their hearings. On March 2, the show moves to Queens and Staten Island. The Bronx and Brooklyn will get the full MTA treatment on March 3, and the traveling circus closes up show on March 4 in Manhattan and Rockland County.