TWU

Another dive into the great station agent debate

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 12, 2013

There once was a token booth. (Photo by flickr user gilly youner)

While heading back to Brooklyn from Midtown last night, I entered the 6th Ave. IND at 42nd St. That entrance on the north side of 42nd St. — underneath the Grace Building one one side and the Bank of America building on the other — is a bit odd. It features a row of turnstiles and no station agent. The booth too has long since been removed, a victim of the MTA’s aggressive cost- and personnel-cutting efforts.

Usually, I see people enter the station without incident, but tonight, as four young kids dressed in the colors and jerseys of the Ireland soccer game went to take the B or D up to Yankee Stadium for the match, at least one of them jumped the turnstile. No one was around to stop them, and it’s possible that even a station agent ensconced in a booth wouldn’t have been much of a deterrent as the offender didn’t take stock of his surroundings. I just smiled to myself.

The station agent debate has laid dormant for a few years. Citing security fears, union officials and transit rider advocates alike protested the MTA’s plans to cut station agents and dismantle token booths. It was a sign that this decision was a permanent one, unlikely to be reversed. Each station still had an agent on duty at all times, but that often meant an agent was located across four tracks or an avenue with no view down the platforms. While station agents are offer a passive presence, even the psychological element seemed to be removed.

For its part, even as concerns over system safety in an age of terrorism remain, the MTA has long maintained that the system has never been safer. During my talk at the Transit Museum last week, Joseph Nugent, the Interagency Liaison between the NYPD and NYCT, claimed that station entrances without agents are generally safer. Nugent said that customer diligence and heightened awareness has led to this result, but it’s possible that, without station agents around, fewer subway riders are reporting potential crimes. Jammed Metrocard readers and turnstile jumpers remain a low-level concern, but NYPD enforcement has stemmed that tide.

Now though as the TWU languishes without a contract, the debate is back. With an assist from Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, the TWU is again demanding more station agents. “Machines can’t do the job that we do. They’re constantly out of service,” TWU Local 100 Member Derick Echevarria said to a New York 1 reporter last week. Of course, what job the station agents do varies drastically from person to person with some apathetic and some very helpful.

As part of the protest, the TWU has presented a petition to the MTA, but the agency says it has no plans to restore any agents or booths. In the indeterminate future, MTA customers will be able to use Help Point intercoms for immediate access to a centralized information or emergency alert system, and underground cell service will assuage some safety concerns as well. I’ve tended to err on the side of fewer station agents as I’ve often found those in the booths less than friendly and not particularly helpful, but I understand why people may want more of them around.

What’s really going on here seems to involve the TWU’s agitating for attention. The union’s contract situation remains unresolved, and until Tom Prendergast is confirmed as the MTA’s CEO and Chairman, nothing will happen. It’s been 17 months since the last contract expired, and the union is looking for any sort of political support or traction. The station agents won’t come back, and the TWU knows it. But it’s an easy way to get some press coverage amidst slow negotiations.

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PANYNJ

Photo: A glimpse inside a marble-lined subway station

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 11, 2013

After fits, starts and budget overruns, Santiago Calatrava’s $4 billion monument to himself PATH station is finally starting to emerge from the below-ground depths of the World Trade Center site. The spikes of the stegosaurus are peeking up above the construction fence, and photos from the work are flying fast and furious. Nikolai Fedak over at New York Yimby posted some ground-level photos, but the one I want to focus on comes from the Port Authority itself.

Via the @WTCProgress account, PATH has been posting photos of the work at the World Trade Center mostly so that New Yorkers can see something is actually happening there. Here’s what they published on May 31:

A subway station encased in marble for some reason. (Via @WTCProgress)

The accompanying text said, “Workers install marble floors at WTC Transportation Hub East West connector that will be lined with retail.” No wonder this thing’s cost has more than doubled from $1.9 billion. The Port Authority is building a marble-plated subway station and underground mall that’s going to put Moscow’s Metro to shame.

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Staten Island

Revisiting a subway connection for Staten Island

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 11, 2013
Plans from 1939 show a Staten Island subway connection via a Fort Hamilton Parkway subway.

Plans from 1939 show a Staten Island subway connection via a Fort Hamilton Parkway subway.

The endless parade of mayoral forums various boroughs and city organizations host over the course of an election season may not bring much clarity on the differences amongst the candidates. After a while, everyone starts to sound the same, and the various discussions blend together into one giant mess of pandering city politicians. Yet, they can provide fodder for potential projects that may never have a chance to see the light of day, and last night’s on Staten Island did not disappoint.

When Staten Island hosts a mayoral forum, the discussion inevitably turns to the transportation options. SI residents hate the tolls on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; they hate the lack of transit options on the island; and they hate how the mayor has focused on a potential subway to Secaucus before exploring a subway to Staten Island. (In fact, Diane Savino has threatened to throw an obstructionist fit in the off chance the mayor’s plan moves forward before the end of the year.)

Last night, in between candidates decrying state control of the MTA and the need to improve ferry service, former MTA Chairman and GOP mayoral hopeful Joe Lhota spoke about the need to connect Staten Island to, well, somewhere. During the forum, Lhota discussed the need to connect the R train to Staten Island. Lhota’s plan, hardly unique in the recent history of proposals to send the subway to Staten Island, harkens back to the original 1913 BMT plans and the 1939 IND Second System proposal to dig under the Narrows via 67th St. in Brooklyn. As part of an aborted effort to realize this subway extension, workers dug out around 150 feet but gave up after a dispute with Mayor Hylan in the mid-1920s.

1912 plans connect a subway tunnel under the Narrows to the BMT's 4th Avenue line.

1912 plans connect a subway tunnel under the Narrows to the BMT’s 4th Avenue line.

So does it make sense for 2013? Ignoring the idea that Staten Island is likely better served with rail on the North Shore and a connection to the Hudson Bergen Rail Light, let’s look at a potential cross-Narrows connection. First, we have the issue of cost. In 2007, Lew Fidler proposed transit and rail freight tunnels that he estimated would cost a total of $10 billion, and in 2010, Diane Savino claimed a subway connection would set back the city by $3 billion. As there are no serious recent studies on the tunnel, it’s unclear how much it would cost, but billions — with a b — is a good starting point.

Next up are travel times. My kneejerk reaction to suggest that a cross-harbor tunnel with a direct connection to Lower Manhattan would be a better use of funds, but it would use up more of those funds. Furthermore, travel times to key job centers may not be worse along 4th Ave. If a Staten Island subway ran express or if riders transferred at 59th St. to an N, that segment of ride lasts about 10 mintes to the Atlantic Ave./Barclays Center stop and around 30-35 minutes to Times Square. A cross-harbor subway, spanning the 5+ miles to the 1 at South Ferry or R at Whitehall St., would likely arrive in Lower Manhattan in about 8-12 minutes but would bypass any job centers in Brooklyn completely.

Meanwhile, there’s a third cost element to consider: Would either a cross-Harbor or a trans-Narrows subway allow the city to cut back or eliminate Staten Island ferry service? According to the latest figures, the subsidizes ferry trips to the tune of $108 million annually. Cutting ferry subsidies to zero would still require three decades or more to recoup costs, but fare collection could help offset the investment. That’s a dirty calculation that assumes the city could cut ferry service entirely, but it’s a factor to consider at least.

For now, we’re just dreaming and thinking off the cuff. No one is yet willing to champion a subway to Staten Island, and even those politicians such as Savino who are willing to talk about it use it as a threat more than a promise. At the mayoral forum, Lhota recognized a need and a talking point that plays well to the audience, but the truth is that there are far more worthwhile subway expansion projects than this one. Staten Island will likely just have to keep on waiting.

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Service Advisories

Map: FASTRACK returns to the Heights

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 10, 2013
It's a map.

It’s a map.

I’m not going to make the same cheesy joke about the A train I made in February. Rather, let me just point out that this time around, as FASTRACK hits the A in Washington Heights north of 168th St. from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. each night this week, you can now take a shuttle bus across Dyckman St. for easy connection to the 1 train. The Bx12 provides some service as well, and the C train will stop running early.

The bulleted details:

  • There will be no service on the A between 168th Street and 207th, and the A will run local south of 168th St.
  • Get the 1 train service at nearby stations between 207th Street and Dyckman Street.
  • Take the M4 bus for service to and from 168th St. and A train stations at 190th Street, 181st Street and 175th Street.
  • Grab a shuttle bus connecting Dyckman Street 1 and Dyckman Street A stations.
  • Hop on regular Bx12 service connecting 207th Street 1 and 207th Street A stations.
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AsidesSecond Avenue Subway

An end in sight for Second Ave. muckhouses

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 10, 2013

For over two years, multi-story structures along Second Ave. called muck houses have protected Upper East Side buildings and residents from exposure to substantial dirt and debris from subway construction. Now, with work moving ahead slowly but surely, the MTA has unveiled a timeline for the removal of these structures, according to today’s amNew York.

According to the article, the 72nd St. muckhouse will be dismantled by the end of August with the 69th St. structure to follow later this fall. The same structures at 86th St. will disappear next summer. Those are already two stories shorter as the MTA’s experiences at 72nd St. allowed them to build more efficiently at 86th. If anything, this institutional memory and learning process is another argument for continuing subway construction underneath Second Ave. long before SAS Phase 1 wraps in 2016.

While some Upper East Siders complain in the article about these structures’ effects on traffic, others have begrudgingly accepted them. “If a New Yorker cannot tolerate something as simple as this, they’re not a New Yorker,” James Kiss said. “We want progress, we expect progress.” Progress — in the form of a new subway line — cannot arrive soon enough.

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Subway History

Looking back at the battle against subway graffiti

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 9, 2013

A Q train, tagged. (Photo via Second Ave. Sagas on Instagram)

While waiting for a Manhattan-bound Q train this Saturday, a rare sight crossed the tracks on the opposite side. The Coney Island-bound train that pulled into 7th Ave. had been tagged. Twenty five years ago, a train with some graffiti on it wouldn’t have been newsworthy, but since a late 1980s/early 1990s effort to clean up the subway, trains on the tracks with tags are a rare sight indeed.

As I pondered this train that passed through, I thought back to the trains of my childhood. While the worst of the tagging and the days in which the authorities seemed to cede the subways to graffiti came before my earliest memories, I remember the colorful trains that served as canvases for prominent street artists and troublemaking hooligans alike. As a young child, I was captivated by the colors, but even then, I sensed it was part of the image of the subways that made them seem dangerous.

The war on graffiti though started when I was approaching my second birthday. The tipping point seemed to come on December 22, 1984 when Bernard Goetz shot a group of teenagers on the subway. Transit authority officials, who had long recognized the need to improve the public perception of the subways, had recently launched an aggressive campaign to clean up the subways, but the Goetz shooting, for better or worse, seemed to spur the city into action. At the time of the incident, approximately 80 percent of subway cars featured some graffiti inside the cars, and the outsides were still widely used as blank slates for the city’s spray painters.

Three years later, the tide had seemingly turned. A Straphangers report issued in 1987 found the TA inching toward a fleet with 75 percent of cars free of markings. The original car wash efforts were plagued with scandal, but by May of 1988, the MTA could proclaim a year-end target for a graffiti-free system.

A memento I picked up at a street fair in the late 1980s is a relic of another era. (Photo via Second Ave. Sagas on Instagram)

By the middle of 1989, the MTA commemorated a graffiti-free system, and since then, graffiti has been more of a curiosity than a problem. Throughout the 1990s, The Times, for one, continued to proclaim the return of graffiti (1991, 1996, 1999), but the transit authority remained aggressive in combatting the problem. Whenever a car was reported bombed or tagged, the TA would take it over service for a rigorous cleaning, and the graffiti would infrequently roll down the tracks.

By the mid-2000s, a new form of vandalism had taken root: scratchiti. Instead of spray paint, taggers were using etching tools and acid to mar windows and stainless steel surfaces. Since then, though, treatment — including scratch-resistant window shields — has minimized the problem. Nowadays, the cars are free from graffiti, and we remember a different era through full-color photos and coffee table books.

Graffiti and its glory days still strikes our imagination though. A post I wrote in 2009 discussion the debate over graffiti’s value as art vs. the act vandalism remains one of the highest-trafficked posts on the site, and a significant portion of the commentary on the history of graffiti has taken pains to make a distinction between the art of the late 1970s and the tagging for tagging’s sake that grew in popularity in the early 1980s. It’s also been a tough balancing act, but city officials have rightly refused to sanction graffiti in any form now or over the past three or four decades. Today, graffiti on subway cars and sanitation trucks is more a sign of a bygone era than anything else, and spying a tagged car on the tracks is nearly newsworthy in a way a clean car was twenty-five years ago.

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Service Advisories

Weekend work impacting 10 subway lines

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 7, 2013

Not a crazy weekend, but the rain and cold may keep people inside until Sunday anyway.


From 3:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 8, 2 service operates in two sections due to track panel installation north of Gun Hill Road:

  • Between Flatbush Avenue and East 180th Street*
  • Between East 180th Street and 241st Street

*2 trains from Flatbush Avenue are rerouted to Dyre Avenue at East 180th Street during this time.


From 3:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 8, 5 service is suspended due to track panel installation north of Gun Hill Road. Customers may take the 2 and/or 4 instead. For service between:

  • Dyre Avenue and 149th Street-Grand Concourse, take the 2 instead (the 2 operates between Dyre Avenue and Flatbush Avenue during this time.)
  • 149th Street-Grand Concourse and Bowling Green, take the 4 instead.


From 12 noon to 5 p.m., Saturday, June 8, 116th Street station is EXIT ONLY due to the 116th Street Festival. Customers will not be allowed entry into the station to prevent overcrowding on platforms and stairways. For Manhattan or Bronx-bound service, use the 110th Street or 125th Street stations instead.


From 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday, June 9, 77th Street station is EXIT ONLY due to the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Customers will not be allowed entry into the station to prevent overcrowding on platforms and stairways. For uptown or downtown service, use the 68th Street or 86th Street stations instead.


From 10:45 p.m. Friday, June 7 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, 207th Street-bound A trains are rerouted via the F line from Jay Street-MetroTech to West 4th Street, then run local to 59th Street-Columbus Circle due to cable work north of Jay Street-MetroTech. Note: E trains are rerouted via the F line to/from the 2nd Avenue F station.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, June 7 to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, June 8, and from 11:45 p.m. Saturday, June 8 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, Queens-bound A trains run express from 59th Street-Columbus Circle to Canal Street due to track tie block renewal north of Spring Street.


From 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday, June 8, downtown (Brooklyn-bound) C trains run express from 59th Street-Columbus Circle to Canal Street due to track tie block renewal north of Spring Street.


From 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday, June 8, 168th Street-bound C trains are rerouted via the F line from Jay Street-MetroTech to West 4th Street due to cable work north of Jay Street-MetroTech.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, June 7 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, E trains are rerouted via the F line in both directions after 36th Street in Queens to 2nd Avenue due to track tie block renewal in the 53rd Street tube.

  • E trains travel via the 63rd Street and 6th Avenue corridors, stopping at F stations. Trains terminate/originate at the 2nd Avenue F station.
  • Free shuttle buses run between Court Square-23rd Street and 21st Street-Queensbridge, making a station stop at Queens Plaza.
  • Transfer between E and 7 trains at 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue or between 7 and A, C trains at Times Square-42nd Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, June 8 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, Jamaica Center-bound E trains run local from Roosevelt Avenue to Forest Hills-71st Avenue due to track repairs at Elmhurst Avenue.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, June 8 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, Jamaica-bound F trains run local from Roosevelt Avenue to Forest Hills-71st Avenue due to track repairs at Elmhurst Avenue.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, June 8 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, the last stop for some G trains headed toward Court Square is Bedford-Nostrand Avs due to asbestos abatement north of Nassau Avenue. Note: G Trains run every 20 minutes between Court Square and Bedford Nostrand Avs.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, June 7 to 6:30 a.m. Saturday, June 8 and from 11:30 p.m. Saturday, June 8 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, Queens-bound N trains are rerouted via the Q line from DeKalb Avenue to Canal Street due to station painting and asbestos abatement in the Montague tube. (See R entry.)


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, June 7 to 5 a.m. Sunday, June 9, Queens-bound N trains are rerouted via the D line from Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue to 36th Street (Brooklyn) due to panel work south of 8th Avenue.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, June 8, Queens-bound R trains are rerouted via the Q line from DeKalb Avenue to Canal Street due to station painting and asbestos abatement in the Montague tube. There are no Queens-bound N or R trains at Jay Street-MetroTech, Court Street, Whitehall Street, Rector Street, Cortlandt Street and City Hall. Customers may use the 4 at nearby stations.

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Subway Advertising

Image: A wrapped 7 for the All Star Game

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 7, 2013

Via Twitter user @alvlee

With Major League Baseball’s All Star Game returning to New York City this year, advertising focusing around it is starting to ramp up. This week, a fully-wrapped 7 train — the first of its kind on the IRT Flushing Line — made its debut. The current sponsor is Head & Shoulders, and the advertisements decorate both the inside and outside of the cars.

For many New Yorkers — those who haven’t seen the Shuttle become an advertising testing ground — the 7 train is a novelty. The MTA had secured a sponsor for a wrapped 6 train a few years ago, but this marks the first full-car opportunity for the 7. The MTA wouldn’t tell me how much money this car generates, but there will be another one sponsored by T-Mobile making an appearance beginning in July.

Over the years, the MTA has ramped up its advertising efforts, boosting revenues in excess of $120 million, but it still seems like an untapped market. Video boards have started showing ads above station entrances, but in-system advertising has remained static. The video screens on some of the new rolling stock are supposed to be able to show ads, but the only clips in rotation have been MTA PSAs. Metrocards now carry ads as well, but those rates are relatively modest.

After the jump, a look at the inside of Head & Shoulders’ MLB 7 train, and for more on Head & Shoulders’ ad strategy with regards to the subway wraps, check out this AdAge piece from March.

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Queens

From Queens, ideas for an expanded subway system

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 7, 2013
The 1939 plans for the IND Second System would have expanded the subways to the far reaches of Queens.

The 1939 plans for the IND Second System would have expanded the subways to the far reaches of Queens.

New York City’s local races — of which there are plenty this year — tend to bring out the crazier transportation ideas. Over at Streetsblog, local candidates have offered up their views on the MTA ranging from the incomprehensible to the sensible while Sal Albanese has focused his mayoral campaign around a congestion traffic plan that would boost mass transit. My favorite though comes to us from Queens.

Leroy Comrie, a current City Council member, is running for Queens Borough President. He isn’t likely to top Melinda Katz who has the backing of the county leaders, but that shouldn’t stop him from trying. In announcing his candidacy, Comrie unveiled his desire to see new subways for Queens. The plans aren’t exactly well formulated or even on the table, but the idea is an intriguing and fanciful one.

The Daily News had more about the ideas put forth by the chair of the Council’s Land Use Committee:

Councilman Leroy Comrie re-launched his bid for borough president this week by dropping a stunning bombshell: he wants a new subway line in Queens. “The E and the F lines are more congested — we could build another line in that tunnel,” said Comrie (D-St. Albans). “Those are the most congested lines in the city.”

The J and Z lines that connect Brooklyn to Queens also could use an overhaul, he said.

The cost of additional service makes Comrie’s proposal as likely as a Mets World Series victory this year. After all, the long delayed Second Avenue subway, which will run from 63rd to 96th Sts. in Manhattan, will cost $4.5 billion by the time it is finished in 2016.

I’m not quite sure what Comrie intends to do with the Queens Boulevard line. There’s no room to “build another line” in the same tunnel, and any new subway in Queens should enhance service, not duplicate preexisting routes. Still, there are significant parts of Queens that are sorely lacking subway service.

For starters, a rail connection to Laguardia would improve mobility to the airport. In terms of access to and through residential neighborhoods, Middle Village could use better subway service, the areas east of Flushing are cut off from the system, and, of course, the Rockaway Beach Branch line could be reactivated. That last proposal has been in the news of late.

With around 2.25 million people, Queens is the second most populous borough, but its subway routes are limited. The western parts of Queens are well served, but the eastern parts are not. Additionally intra-borough, north-south travel is nigh but impossible. Had either version of the Second System plans (1929 or 1939) seen the light of day, Queens would have a more extensive subway network, but only bits and pieces have come online over the decade. None of the transformational lines have seen the light of day.

Ultimately, Comrie’s ideas won’t go anywhere. His candidacy is barely hanging on by a thread, and he’ll likely drop out well before September’s primary. Plus, the Borough President has very little pull in matters of state or even city politics. Still, I like seeing bold ideas presented to the public. Subway expansion plans happen only when leaders are willing to champion them, and if anyone in Queens truly wants better subway service, the calls for it must start somewhere.

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View from Underground

Link: 100 ways to improve the subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on June 6, 2013

Redesigned exit signs could enhance subway wayfinding. (Via Improve The Subway)

The Website: Improve the Subway

Concept: Randy Gregory, a Masters candidate at SVA, offers up this summary of his site: “For the next 100 Days, I will propose various improvements to the New York City Subway, which in 2012 had 1.6 billion riders, and should be seen as the best subway in the country, if not the world. I’ll be exploring various ideas, from UX, Environmental, Co-Branding, Audio/Visual, and more, including potential interviews with MTA employees, all in an attempt to create discussion.”

* * *

As New Yorkers ride through the subways each day, they spend some time dwelling on ways to improve commutes. From a more pleasant station environment to real-time train location information to a smell-free ride, these improvements range from the dramatic to the mundane. Randy Gregory has decided to turn his own thoughts into a project. Gregory is 55 days into his 100-day effort to present ways to improve the city’s subway system. Some ideas — platform screen doors, electronic notice boards — are ideas in the works or under consideration while others — USB power strips — are more fanciful than practical. Others — a Laguardia AirTrain, RFID fare payment systems — remain frustratingly out of reach.

My favorites are the technological fixes that would drastically improve our rides but would present challenges to the MTA in adoption. A real-time car-density monitor would better allocate passengers to empty spaces, but think about the obstacles that must be overcome (including, of course, dollars). We’ll probably have animated in-car ads sooner rather than later, but I wouldn’t expect a smell detector any time soon.

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