Rolling Stock

Bombardier set to win $599 million R179 contract

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 28, 2012

In a few years, the R160s will no longer be the newest members of the Transit fleet. (Photo by flickr user Queens Surface 295)

When the MTA Board gathers to meet later this morning, the august governing body will vote to determine the fate of the system’s next rolling stock purchase, and all signs indicate that they will award Bombardier with a $599 million to build out the R179s. The entire construction process, as Joe Lhota told me on Monday, will take place in New York state, and the MTA will receive 300 new cars as it gears up to retire the oldest rolling stock in the system.

As of now, the exact technical schematics of the new cars are unknown. It appears as though they will be surveillance-camera ready and will likely be modeled off of the R160s currently in service. We know that the 300-car order will spell the end of the line for the R32s and R42s currently in use along the C and J/Z lines respectively. Bombardier, builders of the R62A and R142 cars, bid approximately $57 million less for the project than ALSKAW, according to MTA documents.

Impressively enough, the cars these R179s will replace beginning in approximately 38 months — or by mid 2015 — have held up remarkably well considering their age. The R32s were the first mass-produced stainless subway cars and entered service in the mid-1960s. They will be past 50 by the time they are shelved, and their current upkeep and maintenance stats show their age. These cars breakdown more frequently and require more maintenance than the MTA’s newer models. The R42s, the city’s first fully air conditioned cars, entered service in 1969 and 1970.

The history of the R179 is an interesting one as well. When the MTA wraps Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway in 2016, it will need additional car sets to maintain service levels along the BMT Broadway line and the four-stop extension to the Upper East Side. Originally, the authority had planned on requesting a base order of 290 cars for the R179s with a purchase option for an additional 80 cars that would service Second Ave.

As the MTA notes in the staff summary, though, the funding didn’t materialize as expected and the authority weighed demand. “A reassessment of projected ridership growth as well as anticipated changes in ridership due to changes in demographics in certain parts of New York City led to the conclusion that 300 new cars would satisfy NYC Transit’s need in lieu of the original 290 plus 50 cars,” the document says. “It was determined that car requirements for 2nd Avenue Subway Phase 1 can be accommodated with existing spare cars.”

So with the impending end of the 222 R32s and 48 R42s still in service, straphangers want to know if their line will get the shiny new toys. Will the C train move up from worst to first? And what of the sets along the Jamaica lines? Early reports indicate that the new cars will head elsewhere while the C line will get the hand-me-downs. I’d imagine the A will enjoy the R179s while the C gets the old R46s that run along the A.

And so, the upgrade of the rolling stock, an unsung hero in the revival of the subway system, will continue. Now how about those R211s?

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AsidesNew York City Transit

Another year, another push for platform doors

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 27, 2012

Every year at around this time, the MTA releases its year-end figures concerning passenger safety, and this time around, The Daily News did not fail to get too excited. As the paper notes, a whopping 147 people — or a percentage of all riders too miniscule to calculate — were struck by trains. That amounts to one accident every 2.5 days or approximately 1 accident per 12.5 million riders.

Without minimizing the loss of life — 33 percent of those hit by trains died — this isn’t exactly a problem screaming out for a solution. Still, earlier this week, New York City Transit President Tom Prendergast once again spoke out in favor of platform doors. “The primary reason is safety, ” he said. “The second is environmental control and the third is to have a better means of getting the train into the station, doing the loading and unloading, and getting the train out of the station.”

We’ve been down this road before. In fact, it was just last February when Prendergast first proposed platform doors (as long as they didn’t have to pay much), and everyone and their uncles grossly overreacted. Now with, in the words of The Daily News, “terrifying” accidents taking a “sharp leap” upward, the doors are back.

I’ll say what I said last year: If the MTA can implement platform doors while keeping expenditures low, great. They’ll keep people and trash out of the tracks while allowing for more temperate platforms. But the cost of implementing such a plan, let alone the practicalities at a time when door spacing on various rolling stock models has yet to be fully standardized, could be astronomical. And at that point, the costs far, far outweigh the benefits.

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Arts for Transit

For straphangers, Poetry in Motion returns

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 27, 2012

Graduation by Dorothea Tanning is the first in the newly revived Poetry In Motion series. (Courtesy of MTA Arts for Transit)

The MTA’s decision in 2008 to axe the Poetry in Motion displays turned out to be a rather unpopular one. Weary straphangers who enjoyed the whimsy or thoughtfulness of the rhyming subway placards bemoaned the disappearances of the poems, and the Train of Thought project that placed it never took off.

Today, nearly a year to the day since initial rumors resurfaced, New York City Transit announced the triumphant return of Poetry in Motion. The first verse of the new series, which I espied in a 3 train on Sunday, comes from Dorothea Tanning, a poet who passed away this January at age 101, and it is entitled “Graduation.”

“Our customers tell us again and again that even a small investment in art and music underground makes a huge difference to them,” MTA Chairman Joseph J. Lhota said in a statement. “It can really improve the entire experience of riding the subway. And the beauty of this program—and of poetry and art in general—is that it can really transport you.”

The MTA, along with the Poetry Society of America, announced today that the new program will be an expanded version of the old standby. The poems will incorporate images from the authority’s extensive Arts for Transit collection and will be available on everywhere from subway car palcards to MetroCards to the travel bulletins posted in subway stations across the city. Within the subway cars, the decorated posters will be in the shape of a square at eye level rather than in the rectangular space reserved for overhead placards.

“The artwork and the poetry are not meant to necessarily interpret each other but to create a dialog,” Sandra Bloodworth, Director of MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design said. “You may experience them individually or as one. Each stands in its own right, yet they can be viewed in tandem. The interpretation is up to the individual, so we don’t expect everyone will experience the art or the poetry or the two together in the same way. It will be left to a multitude of interpretations.”

The authority said it will release the next poem in April and then offer up two new ones each season. Three million MetroCards per quarter will come adorned with the poems as well, and that total represents approximately 11 percent of all MetroCards sold each quarter. For more on the return of Poetry in Motion, check out Cldye Haberman’s paean to program.

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ManhattanMTA Construction

Photo: At Bleecker St., an aligned uptown 6

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 27, 2012

A southward glimpse at the new Bleecker Street platform for the uptown 6. (Photo courtesy of Todd Schechter)

As the Bleecker St. rehabilitation ambles toward a June 2012 completion, New York City Transit announced yesterday the opening of a new platform for the uptown 6. In order to provide for a connection to the IND trains at Broadway/Lafayette, the uptown platform has been extended southward by 300 feet, and the northern half of the preexisting platform has been shuttered.

Overall, this station rehab is part of three projects which include the rehabilitation of the landmarked Bleecker St. station, construction of that free transfer between the IND and uptown IRT and the installation of five elevators and a new escalator. Over the years, I’ve followed this project quite closely and have been critical of the costs and timeline. Costs have ballooned to $135 million, and when the station is ready in June, construction will have taken nearly four years. By comparison, it took just over four years to build out the IRT from City Hall to 145th St.

Either way, this is a welcome addition to what was an infuriating quirk of the New York City subway system, and in three months, the new transfer will make a ride up the 6 far more convenient for folks coming from the B, D, F and M trains in the morning.

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AsidesSubway Security

Subway grand larceny figures up nearly 40 percent

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 26, 2012

The NYPD has released subway crime figures for the first two months of the year, and yet again, grand larceny numbers are up markedly. In February, the police received 126 grand larceny reports — up by 35 over February 2011 — and the year-to-date numbers show a similar increase. Grand larcenies are up 39 percent, and robberies are up 47 percent.

The numbers, of course, are alarming, but we know what’s fueling these increases: device thefts. Unsuspecting straphangers are too busy playing Angry Birds to notice their vulnerability. Thus, grab-and-go larcenies become more common. According to officers I’ve spoken with, iPads have quickly become the most popular devices since they’re worth the most, and iPhones are a constant target as well. Even as the subways are significantly safer now than they’ve been in years, we should still remain aware of our surroundings, as one of those endlessly annoying subway announcements makes perfectly clear.

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MTA

MTA Dispatches: Capital funding approved, BusTime on 34th St.

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 26, 2012

With the MTA Board meetings this morning came a flurry of news. I’ll round it up here.

Albany approves MTA Capital funding plan

While the details of the backroom deals have yet to be released, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has persuaded Republican State Senators to approve the MTA funding requests in his New York state budget. Originally, Dean Skelos and his GOP caucus in the State Senate had stripped all MTA funding from the budget in a show of faux-concern over MTA debt levels. But now, the MTA bond cap will jump by $7 billion, and the state will provide $770 million in new funds.

This move also assuages MTA fears that the feds would rescind favorable funding deals as well, and the authority was pleased with the deal. “The MTA is grateful for Governor Cuomo’s leadership and commitment in recognizing the critical importance of funding mass transit, and in particular fully funding our current Capital Program,” the agency said in a statement. “The MTA Capital Program not only provides for continued investment in our network, but also creates tens of thousands of jobs and generates economic activity across the entire state. With this funding, the MTA will continue to enhance our riders’ experience by investing in the future of our transportation network, as well as bringing our assets up to a state of good repair.”

I’ll have more on the capital plan later, but I do wonder what carrot Cuomo dangled for the Senate to secure these funds.

BusTime heading to 34th St.

Hot on the heels of a successful Staten Island adaptation, the MTA’s BusTime program is making its debut in Manhattan. The in-house option will replace Clever Devices’ expensive pilot in place along 34th St. effective April 8, 2012.

“We’re bringing Bus Time to 34th Street to replace the original pilot developed by technology firm Clever Devices,” Darryl Irick, President of MTA Bus and Senior Vice President NYC Transit’s Department of Buses, said. “However, unlike the previous pilot, the new system was developed in-house by the MTA at a fraction of the cost and allows us to expand Bus Time to more routes more quickly.”

The only drawback to the technology which allows riders with any phone to access bus location information concerns countdown clocks. When the Clever Devices’ system is shut off, the countdown clocks in place at bus shelters along the M34 and M34A SBS routes will no longer be in use.

Over 1100 buses to get security cameras

In an effort to better protect bus drivers, Transit announced today that it is exercising an option for the purchase and installation of cameras for 1150 buses in the fleet. The original contract with UTC Fire and Security called for installation of cameras in 426 buses, and the current option will include hardware and software for monitoring in 12 additional depots. Per Transit, the surveillance system features cameras for the interiors of 40- and 60-foot buses.

“Video surveillance is a vital element of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s ongoing effort to maintain a transit network that is as safe and secure as possible,” NYC Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast said in a statement. “Bus cameras offer a visible crime deterrent, while also providing a state-of-the-art electronic tool that will aid in the investigation and prosecution of criminal activity aboard the vehicle.”

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Buses

As bus ridership declines, BusTime shows gains

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 25, 2012

Without unseasonably warm weather, bus ridership in January would have shown a decline.

Over the past few months, I’ve burned more than a few pixels assessing the MTA’s ongoing decline in bus ridership figures. Select Bus Services has proven popular, but as we know, the downward trend in ridership numbers has been both long-term and steady. MTA Board members would like to see this trend reversed, but it’s unclear how the MTA plans to do so.

In advance of Monday morning’s MTA Board committee hearings, the authority released its latest ridership figures, and again the bus numbers show a decline. As the authority notes, average weekday bus ridership actually climbed in January 2012 from January 2011 by approximately 5.6 percent. However, as the authority notes, “adjusted for weather differences, bus ridership would have had a small decrease.” In other words, had we had winter in January this year, bus ridership would have declined yet again. The rolling twelve-month average decreased by three percent.

So is there a way to solve this decline? Maybe technology can be a part of that answer. Earlier this year, the MTA unveiled its BusTime application on Staten Island. The in-house bus tracking system will soon spread to the Bronx and one other borough this year before a full citywide rollout is completed by the end of 2013. In the meantime, WNYC’s Jim O’Grady reports on the early Staten Island success of the technology.

He reports:

The MTA’s BusTime system has been up and running in Staten Island for barely two months and already an estimated 10 percent of all bus riders use it every weekday. The service lets riders use a mobile device to text or scan a bus stop code and receive a message with their bus’s location.

“Having that information on the phone just revolutionizes the experience of riding the bus,” said Josh Robin, a project director with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which has had its own version of the program since 2009. “You can look on the screen and see the bus moving toward you instead of peering down the road, hoping to see the lights and LED sign of a bus.”

Staten Island is the first of the city’s five boroughs to receive BusTime, which, according to transportation analysts, is off to a flying start. “I think it is a smashing success to have 10 percent of the riders using it within a year of opening the service,” said Dr. Kari Watkins, a civil engineering professor at Georgia Tech who studied real-time bus arrival information in Seattle. She said it has taken two and a half years for that city’s version of BusTime, called OneBusAway, to be used by 20 percent of its riders.

The MTA cannot yet determine if BusTime will lead to an increase in ridership on Staten Island, but I believe as this technology becomes an accepted part of the bus landscape, ridership will inch up a bit. Simply put, BusTime solves the pain of waiting for a bus, and that wait is one of the main reasons why people don’t take the bus. There have been countless times where I’ve glanced down an empty avenue in search of a bus, and with no vehicle in sight, I opt to walk instead. The schedules posted at bus stops are generally useless, and with BusTime, potential bus riders will know when to wait and when to take the bus.

Now, BusTime is only one piece of the puzzle. We need buses that are faster on the streets, have priority signaling and dedicated lanes. We need buses that aren’t slowed down by endless boarding queues as riders go through the painfully slow process of a MetroCard dip. We need bus routes that are maximized to deliver riders from where they are to where they need to be in a way other transit options do not. For now, though, we’ll settle for a good app that tells us when the bus is coming. It’s a start.

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Service Advisories

Weekend work impacting 14 subway lines

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 23, 2012

Happy Friday. The map is here.


From 12:01 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m., Monday, March 26, uptown 4 trains run express from Brooklyn Bridge to 14th Street-Union Square, then local to 125th Street due to work on the Broadway/Lafayette-to-Bleecker Street connection.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to 5 a.m. Monday March 26, downtown 4 trains run local from 125th Street to Brooklyn Bridge due to signal enhancement.


From 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday, March 24 and from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Sunday, March 25, uptown 5 trains run local from 14th Street-Union Square to 125th Street and 5 trains run every 20 minutes between Bowling Green and Dyre Avenue due to track plate replacement at Brooklyn Bridge. In addition, downtown 5 trains run local from 125th Street to Brooklyn Bridge due to signal enhancement.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 26, uptown 6 trains run express from Brooklyn Bridge to 14th Street-Union Square due to work on the Broadway/Lafayette-to-Bleecker Street connection. In addition, 6 service is extended to Bowling Green due to track plate replacement at Brooklyn Bridge.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 26, there are no 7 trains between Times Square-42nd Street and Queensboro Plaza due to track panel installation and CBTC work south of Queensboro Plaza, ADA work at Court Square and station renewal at Hunters Point Avenue. Customers should take the N, R, E or F between Manhattan and Queens. Free shuttle buses operate between Vernon Blvd-Jackson Avenue and Queensboro Plaza. In Manhattan, the 42nd Street shuttle (S) operates overnight. (Repeats next weekend — March 31-Apr 2.)


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 26, 207th Street-bound A trains run via the F line from Jay Street-MetroTech to West 4th Street, then local to 59th Street-Columbus Circle due to electrical and substation work at Jay Street-MetroTech.


From 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m., Saturday, March 24, Queens-bound A trains skip Ralph Avenue and Rockaway Avenue due to removal and replacement of corroded steel beams south of Ralph Avenue.


From 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25, 168th Street-bound C trains run via the F line from Jay Street-MetroTech to West 4th Street due to electrical and substation work at Jay Street-MetroTech.


From 11 p.m. Friday, March 23 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 26, Manhattan-bound D trains skip 182nd-183rd Sts due to track bed repairs.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to Monday, March 26, Jamaica-bound E trains run express from Roosevelt Avenue to Forest Hills-71st Avenue due to track maintenance.


From 11 p.m. Friday, March 23 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 26, Brooklyn-bound F trains run via the M line after 36th Street in Queens to 47th-50th Sts in Manhattan due to SAS work at Lexington Avenue-63rd Street station.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to 10 p.m., Sunday, March 25, Jamaica Center-bound J trains skip Kosciuszko Street, Gates Avenue, Halsey Street and Chauncey Street due to track panel installation at Halsey Street and Gates Avenue.


From 12:01a.m. to 6:30 a.m., Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25 and from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m., Monday, March 26, Manhattan-bound N trains run via the Manhattan Bridge from DeKalb Avenue to Canal Street due to station painting at City Hall.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 24 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 26, Coney Island-bound N trains run via the D line from 36th Street to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue due to track panel installation south of 59th Street.


From 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday, March 24 and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, March 25, Q service is extended to Ditmars Blvd. due to work on the 7 line.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25, Manhattan-bound R trains run via the Manhattan Bridge from DeKalb Avenue to Canal Street due to station painting at City Hall.


From 6:30 a.m. to 12 midnight, Saturday, March 24 and Sunday, March 25, Forest Hills-71st Street-bound R trains run express from Roosevelt Avenue to 71st Avenue due to track maintenance.

(42nd Street Shuttle)
From 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m., Saturday, March 24, Sunday, March 25 and Monday, March 26, the 42nd Street shuttle operates all night, every 10 minutes, due to the 7 line suspension between Queens and Manhattan.

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AsidesView from Underground

Link: ‘The Tao of the C Train’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 23, 2012

McSweeney’s has a fun piece for a Friday afternoon: Kendra Eash presents The Tao of the C Train. It is her ode to the subway replete with this gem: “There is no person who is not clean who has not sat in your seat. No matter which seat you choose, it is unclean. When everyone is unclean, cleanliness ceases to exist.” It ends with an existential question: “Who can continue to calmly ride, when train traffic is ahead?” [McSweeney’s]

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AsidesTWU

Samuelsen: Add platform staffers to dangerous stations

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 23, 2012

During yesterday’s discussion on subway stations we love to hate, a few readers mentioned narrow platforms as a major concern. At rush hour, some stations simply cannot handle the crowds, and lately, the MTA has dealt with a spate of accidents, some fatal, at 72nd St. and Broadway, an express stop home of a very narrow platform. John Samuelsen has a solution.

The TWU boss, in an letter to Joe Lhota which The Daily News obtained, calls upon the MTA to bring more employees to oversee platforms at crowded or dangerous stations. The authority has reduced these so-called station conductors from 100 to 40 over the past five years, and they could restore some order. “The platform is so narrow that if a person slips or trips there is a good chance they will be hit by an approaching train or fall onto the tracks,” he wrote.

Samuelsen might be onto something, but I wonder if he would accept my proposal: Bring aboard more station conductors by changing the job responsibilities of station agents to include platform duty during peak hours. This way, the MTA wouldn’t have to spend money it doesn’t have on staffing levels while at the same time, the authority would be developing a more productive work force. It would be a win for the MTA, a win for passengers and a win for the union as well.

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