MTA Politics

Skelos and Co.: No, really, we care about MTA debt

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 19, 2012

When MTA CEO and Chairman Joe Lhota fired off a letter to the New York Senate Republicans that questioned their commitment to transit within New York, we all knew the letter would not go unanswered, and last week, Dean Skelos and his entourage responded in turn. With a little bit of faux-concern, Skelos along with Senators Charles J. Fuschillo and Martin J. Golden claimed they denied the MTA capital funding because they truly honestly are deeply concerned with the MTA’s looming debt crisis.

The full letter is available here, and I’ll excerpt.

“Let us assure that the Senate understands the critical role the MTA plays in our State’s economy and supports capital investment in the MTA system…However, allowing a staggering $42 billion bonding debt level is of great concern, especially at the same time the MTA has many unresolved issues in its financial plan.

While we recognize the importance of advancing capital projects, we also recognize the importance of funding them in a fiscally responsible and prudent manner. The MTA’s 2012-15 financial plan contains several risks which could adversely impact its ability to fund the remainder of the 2010-2014 Capital Program. The MTA is currently projecting deficits of $141 million and $211 million in 2014 and 2015, respectively. These deficits include factoring in 7.5 percent fare and toll increases in both 2013 and 2015, increases which have yet to be approved by the MTA Board and have never been supported by the Senate Republican Conference.

The MTA’s financial plan also assumes that it will be able to reach a new labor contract which includes three years of no wage increases, unless there are offsetting productivity improvements. If the MTA is unable to achieve these assumed labor contract savings, it would add substantial costs to its operating budget.

Now, nothing these three illustrious Senators say is incorrect. The MTA’s financial plan does rest on some tenuous assumptions, and they are relying on a net-zero wage increase — something that will be achieved through negotiations or layoffs. But this letter doesn’t address Lhota’s main concerns. By playing fast and loose with the MTA’s capital funding, Skelos and the Senate GOP representatives are risking billions in federal financing and the timely completion of East Side Access, Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway and countless other capital program items that keep our subway system running.

It’s also disingenuous for anyone in Albany to now express concerns over the MTA’s debt levels. For decades, Albany has scaled back direct investment in the MTA as the authority has turned toward debt financing. Now that austerity is all the rage amongst Tea Party voters, Skelos has found responsible budgeting at the worst possible time, and he has decided to blame the victim by denying it money.

The MTA needs to do a better job of reining in costs. It must not be spending so much on construction and labor. But right now, it also has to finish up to mega-projects, and billions of dollars of money is on the line. This is a game of political chicken the MTA can ill afford to play.

9 comments
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesBuses

Former MTA bus head named DesignLine interim CEO

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 19, 2012

So here’s a little bit of intriguing industry news: Joseph Smith, the former Senior Vice President of Buses with Transit, has been named interim CEO of the DesignLine company. Smith stepped down from his MTA post in late 2010 and had been consulting with Cyan Partners, the arranger of DesignLine’s recent debt and equity capital raises. Now, he’ll have the opportunity to right the DesignLine ship on an interim basis.

To me, this is an intriguing bit because of DesignLine’s tortured history with its delivery of buses and its lack of recent success. DesignLine ran a 2007 pilot in New York City, and although customers gave high marks to the vehicles, Transit eventually determined that the vehicles were not robust enough for New York City. At around the same time, the city of Baltimore issued a similar announcement concerning DesignLine buses, and many in the transit production industry questioned the long-term viability of the company.

So now Smith will take the reins. He served as the head of MTA Bus, the president of MTA Long Island Bus and most recently as the SVP with Transit overseeing buses. He was well-respected at the MTA and can take his insider perspective to a company that needs the help. A shift like Smith’s from buyer to vendor is not a rare one within the transit industry. It’s a tight-knit community that often can’t shake its “inside baseball” reputation. We’ll see now what future awaits these DesignLine buses.

6 comments
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
BrooklynBuses

In DUMBO, the way we share the streets

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 19, 2012

Photos from DUMBO seem to suggest that buses aren't creating traffic problems. (Photo by flickr user katebriquelet)

In his 1981 book The Highway and the City, Lewis Mumford wrote on the relationship between cars and urban life. “The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is actually the right to destroy the city,” he said. Perhaps Mumford was overreaching a bit, but as we’ve seen over the last few years, New Yorkers go to crazy extremes to defend what they believe is their inalienable right to curbside access.

The most famous example of curbside NIMBYism came along 34th St. as residents decried the way a dedicated bus lane would — GASP — require them to walk from the corner or cross a street to get to their apartment buildings. They could not unload their cars! They could not get direct door-to-door taxi service! It was an urban NIMBY nightmare.

Recently, a similar situation long brewing in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood came to a head. Some local residents along Main St. have complained about the way the B25 ambles down Main St. as it turns around to head back toward Fulton St. on its way to East New York. Here’s how The Brooklyn Paper summed up the dispute:

Residents on Main Street in DUMBO are demanding that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority re-route a bus that they claim causes traffic jams and road rage on their already cramped street — saying it’s only a matter of time before someone gets run over by the B25. “We’ve been petitioning the MTA for years,” said Ethan Goldman, a vocal opponent of the B25 bus route. “This is a huge problem that could easily be fixed, but they refuse to listen.”

For decades, the B25 bus has run from Downtown to DUMBO via Cadman Plaza West before heading east on Front Street to Main Street.But that was before the neighborhood became a hotspot for families and art houses including Galapagos Art Space and powerHouse Arena.

Now during the morning rush, DUMBO residents complain that one or more buses get stuck between illegally parked delivery trucks and cars — creating a din of perpetual honking and screeching tires in a neighborhood that is already among the noisiest in the city.

Re-read that last paragraph and revel in its logic. The bus is a problem because it gets stuck behind illegally parked trucks and cars. It’s not the cars and trucks that are problematic; it’s the city bus. “If the enforcement is only way that this bus route is going to work, that’s a sign that this isn’t a good plan,” Rob Perris, district manager for Community Board 2, said.

The comments from DUMBO residents, gathered at the bottom of a post on Brownstoner and torn apart by Brooklyn Spoke are just as illuminating. Here’ s a gem:

Main Street is now a major destination in New York City, and on Saturday and Sunday there is asteady stream of limos coming down Main Street dropping off their parties on the street to takephotos in the park and to go to various restaurants in the neighborhood. The limos and the busesare engaged in a weekend-long battle for access to Main Street and wedding parties and guestsare regularly dodging the never-ending on-coming buses that always seem to travel in pairs.

In the same group of letters, inconsistencies abound. Some residents claim delivery fleets and illegally parked cars are a problem while others say the street is simply too narrow and too congested with children — who somehow navigate the delivery trucks and parked cars? — to support buses. The valid concerns of speeding bus drivers who aren’t respectful or careful enough of pedestrians are lost in the din of a group of people who just don’t like buses. (Although how the buses could be speeding that dangerously with the streets clogged with illegally parked cars is another conundrum here.)

DUMBO residents are seemingly alleging that buses are responsible for the traffic on their block, and their solution isn’t to enforce traffic laws or rethink the placement of loading areas. It is to ban buses. Let’s make it someone else’s problem so our idyllic little streets can be restored to their proper dignity, fit for cars and front-door deliveries. In any city, cars have a place; deliver vehicles have a place; limos and taxis have a place. But they do not have unfettered access to the streets at the expense of anything else. “Sharing” is a lesson we should have learned in kindergarten, but it is often lost on people battling over street space.

I believe Doug Gordon at Brooklyn Spoke summarizes it best: “New York is in a strange place right now. We have visionary leadership transforming our streets every day. We are home to some of the most innovative thinkers, business people, artists, and techies. But when it comes to thinking our way out of the traffic hell that engulfs so many neighborhoods–and the climate change that will come to swallow low-lying neighborhoods like DUMBO–it’s all too easy for the narrow-minded and loud to win out over the nuanced and creative.”

18 comments
1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Service Advisories

A light load of weekend work for St. Patrick’s Day

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 16, 2012

Friday already, huh? These weeks just fly by sometimes. Subway Weekender has the map and notes that the light work schedule is likely due to St. Patrick’s Day. Transit has to keep the subways running for the drunk hoards of folks roaming around the city. Personally, I subscribe to Chris’ take on the holiday, and I’ll be out celebrating my dad’s birthday anyway.

In other news, I’m hearing that the Smith/9th St. station along the F and G trains will not be reopening until the fall. Original estimates had the station returning to service some time this spring. I’ll try to confirm this development next week.

Anyway, here are the service changes. You know what to do.


From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday, March 18, Woodlawn-bound 4 trains skip 138th Street-Grand Concourse due to platform edge survey at 149th Street-Grand Concourse.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 17 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 19, 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 two weekends through March 31-Apr 2.)


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 17 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 19, A trains run local in both directions between 145th Street and 168th Street and from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday, March 17, and Sunday, March 18, there is no C train service between 145th Street and 168th Street due to track maintenance. Customers should take the A instead.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 17 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 19, Coney Island-bound D trains run via the N line from 36th Street to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue due to station and line structure rehabilitation near 9th Avenue.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, March 17 to 10 p.m., Sunday, March 18, 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 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday, March 17 and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, March 18, Q service is extended to Ditmars Blvd. due to work on the 7 line.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, March 17 to 10 p.m. Sunday, March 18, Coney Island-bound Q trains skip Avenue U and Neck road due to track tie insertion.

(42nd Street Shuttle)
From 12:01 a.m. to 6 a.m., Saturday, March 17, Sunday, March 18 and Monday, March 19, 42nd Street operates all night, every 10 minutes, due to the 7 line suspension between Queens and Manhattan.

7 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
MTA Construction

Video: FASTRACK along 8th Ave.

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 16, 2012

Apologies for the silence. It’s been a busy 24 hours. To tide you over for a bit, how about a little FASTACK recap? The MTA wrapped up the final part of the first 2012 FASTRACK treatment last night, and they’ll begin anew again with the Seventh Ave. line in early April.

“With the first round FASTRACK complete, we can already see how much progress we can make in the vital areas of cleaning and maintenance, and just as importantly, our customers can see it in the station environment,” NYC Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast said in a statement. “There is a winning combination here of increased productivity and improved worker safety.”

Here’s how Transit summarized the early improvements:
Signals: Replaced 15 switches, serviced 34 signals, serviced two timers, supported the Track Division on various rail and switch jobs;

  • Track: Installed 21 rails, installed 1,610 friction pads, scraped 16,750 feet of muck, removed 11,972 bags of rubbish, removed 27,950 pounds of scrap; Corrected 2,605 third rail defects, installed 1,269 plates, installed 60 tie blocks, and cleaned, scraped and bagged refuse from nearly four miles of track;
  • Stations: 1,657 station lights replaced, 52 platform edge signs replaced, replaced 81 square feet of ADA tiles, repaired 1,510 linear feet of rubbing boards, grouted floor tiles, inspected 20 platform edges, installed yellow safety tack tiles and floor tiles at various locations, cleaned and tested 101 emergency alarms and telephones, inspected and cleaned 23 cameras and 12 monitors, and replaced two cameras. Additionally, workers scraped 19,970 square feet, primed 11,590 square feet, and painted 7,970 square feet of space at stations; and
  • Elevators and Escalators: Cleaned glass enclosure panels, performed tests on fire alarms and sprinkler systems, corrected 22 outstanding work order defects.

Like it or not, this is, for the foreseeable future, the new normal for weeknight travel in New York City. That State of Good Repair remains elusive indeed.

30 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Public Transit Policy

The good and bad of the Senate Transpo Bill

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 15, 2012

By a vote of 74-22, the Senate yesterday passed their version of a reauthorization of the transportation bill. You can read all about the vote at Streetsblog and Transportation for America. I wanted to discuss a few key New York-centric aspects of this new measure.

First, the good: New York City stands to benefit tremendously under the Senate version of the bill. As The Post notes, New York State would receive $1.4 billion in transit dollars and $1.7 billion in road money. The bulk of the transit dollars would fund MTA projects, and the commuter tax benefits would be restored to $240 per month. “It’s one of the most important bills for New York that’s going to come this year,” Chuck Schumer, Senior Senator from the Great State of New York, said.

Now the bad: Besides the fact that the House seems intent on enacting a Tea Party-style death by a million cuts on the Transportation Bill and the final version will have to go to conference for a reconciliation, the safety measures are something we should not be quick to embrace. As The Washington Post explains, the Senate, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the derailment and collision problems through which only the WMATA suffers warrant sweeping federal safety oversight of the nation’s subway systems.

“We have federal safety standards for planes, trains and automobiles. We need them for transit systems like Washington’s Metro,” Maryland’s Sen. Barbara Mikulski said. “I will keep pushing forward on reforming Metro until it’s safe for the people who work on it and the people who ride on it.”

Now, it’s all well and good for the Senate to be concerned with the lone subway system that literally runs through its backyard, but as I said a few weeks ago, federal oversight for subway systems is unnecessary and likely costly. It will carry unfunded federal mandates that lead to detrimental redundancies that just aren’t necessary to operate a fast and efficient rapid transit network. We’ve seen it with the FRA, and there’s no reason to expect otherwise here. If the Senate has a problem with their own Metro, they should address it at home and not by making the rest of us suffer.

Before we get too upset over these developments, though, we must wait for the House. A looming showdown could drastically alter the structure of this bill, but at least the Senate is willing to move forward with a somewhat sensible transportation solution.

20 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Buses

Must love buses?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 15, 2012

Over the past few years, the MTA has witnessed a bus problem emerge. With slower traffic, unreliable schedules and slashed and reduced routes, the city’s local bus system has sometimes become an afterthought. Popular crosstown and through-borough routes can stick pack ’em in, but bus ridership has undergone a steady decline as subway use has skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, the MTA’s and New York City’s investment in its bus network has been lukewarm at best. It seemingly takes nearly as long to get a Select Bus Service route up and running as it does to build out a subway extension as planning meetings bog down the process. The most radical street reconstructions, such as those envisioned for 34th Street, have fallen away in the face of NIMBY protests, and the city has struggled with basic bus improvements such as a faster ride to La Guardia Airport or Brooklyn/Queens connections that span popular neighborhoods.

This attitude toward buses should change, though, one commentator has recently alleged. Will Doig, writing last week, at Slate penned a paean to buses. We might hate the bus and all it stands, but we should begin to love it. He writes:

When it comes to improving mass transit, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit on the humble city bus. The vital connective tissue of multi-modal transit systems, the bus could be an efficient — nay, elegant — solution to cities’ mobility woes if only we made it so.

And yet we rarely do. Streetcars are replacing bus routes in cities across the country, and billions are thrown at light rail while the overlooked bus is left to scream “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” “If you decide that buses don’t merit investment, you’re going to miss a lot of opportunities to help people get where they’re going, and to expand their sense of freedom of movement, just because you don’t like the vehicle they’re riding,” says transit consultant Jarrett Walker.

Making people like the bus when not liking the bus is practically an American pastime essentially means making the bus act and feel more like a train. Trains show up roughly when they’re supposed to. Buses take forever, then arrive two at a time. Trains boast better design, speed, shelters, schedules and easier-to-follow routes. When people say they don’t like the bus but they do like the train, what they really mean is they like those perks the train offers. But there’s no reason bus systems can’t simply incorporate most of them.

Doig, who links to a recent post of mine on the MTA’s bus woes, urges American cities to adopt and adapt true bus rapid transit lanes for their cities. Forget Select Bus Service, a vision of what Limited bus service should be; embrace the dedicated, physically separated lane. Other changes, such as frequency mapping and more comfortable vehicles, could improve the bus commuting experience too, but faster service remains a paramount concern.

Now, I’m of two minds when it comes to buses. I firmly believe the city should prioritize buses over, say, cars when it comes to planning transportation routes, but can a bus network in a city without space for the wide boulevards that have made TransMilenio be bus rapid transit? Can we expect buses to drive development and ferry the same number of people as a subway can? I don’t believe so.

Buses should be a complementary part of a transit system. Because they do not run on fixed tracks, they can be routed to serve areas the subway doesn’t and can’t reach. They can bring people from one already-established neighborhood to another. They can serve that role as the “vital connective tissue,” as Doig writes. They can’t, though, replace subways now or into the future.

So we don’t have to see buses as the future of everything, but if we tried to love them a little bit more, perhaps they could be more useful. It’s all about predictable service, faster speeds and better routing that gets people from where they are to where they want to be. Local buses have become second-class citizens in the transit world, and it’s time to reassess their place in our transportation ecosystem.

77 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesTWU

Dissent at the TWU as Toussaint reemerges

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 14, 2012

As the MTA and TWU amble their way toward some sort of settlement over their current contract dispute, dissent may be brewing from within the Local 100 ranks. As Ted Mann of The Wall Street Journal reports today, Roger Toussaint, the erstwhile leader of the city’s TWU local and the man responsible for the 2005 transit strike, is back on the scene, and he has been aggressive in targeting John Samuelsen’s current approach to negotiations. “The issue is not if they have the [money],” Toussaint said to The Journal. “It’s about getting it from them. And you have to have a real strategy to do that. You can’t just make it up as you go along and hope that no one notices.”

After losing an election to Samuelsen in 2009, Toussaint had faded from the scene, and in fact, he had moved down to D.C. for a few years. Within the past few months, when Samuelsen refused to threaten a strike, Toussaint moved back to Brooklyn to resume his track-shop job with the MTA, and many believe he is angling for a spot atop the leadership structure at Local 100. Toussaint in his interview with Mann slams Samuelsen for his approach toward negotiation. He wants a hardline, and he wants the MTA leadership to hear that even as they continue to threaten a net-zero wage increase.

For his part, Samuelsen shrugged off Toussaint’s words and presence. “Roger couldn’t mobilize 20 members to do anything after the 2005 strike,” Samuelsen said. “He couldn’t mobilize a bunch of kindergarten kids to get online to get cookies and milk, and yet he finds fit to criticize our mobilization in the last year.” Still, the former president’s militant tone, in light of the TWU’s embrace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, must have current TWU leadership watching their political backs.

32 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
MTA Politics

Lhota: Senate budget shows wavering state commitment to transit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 14, 2012

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s dismaying news concerning the GOP-lead State Senate budget resolution that withdrew state support of the MTA capital fund, authority Chairman and CEO Joe Lhota struck back. In a pointedly-worded letter to Dean Skelos, the New York State Senate Majority Leader, Lhota urged the Senate Republicans to reverse course and questioned their commitment to both transit and growing jobs in New York State.

Noting that the request to increase the MTA’s bonding limit as well as a direct grant from the State were included in the Governor’s budget and the Assembly’s plan, Lhota bemoaned the Senate resolution. “These items, along with approval of the MTA’s proposed amendment to the 2010-2014 Capital Program, are essential to allow us to continue to make the important transportation investments that the twelve counties of the Metropolitan Transportation New York Region desperately need.”

In the letter, Lhota, a former Giuliani confidante, hit back at the GOP over their claims of job creation. Transit, he said, is what spurs job growth. It helps ferry New Yorkers to their jobs, and by purchasing services and supplies from New York businesses, it keeps the upstate economy afloat and growing as well. “Over 80% of commuters into the NY central business district during peak hours use the MTA systems, and MTA’s 2012 capital program alone will account for over 20% of New York City construction jobs,” he wrote. “Furthermore, the Capital Program’s continued purchase of rail cars, buses and other equipment provides significant economic benefit to New Yorkers far beyond the New York Metropolitan region.”

Behind this game of Russian roulette Skelos is playing with the MTA’s capital budget, the Senate GOP is also putting billions in federal loans at risk as well. The MTA is currently negotiating with the feds for a $3 billion loan that will push East Side Access and Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway to completion. The loan is contingent on a fully funded capital plan, and New York, says Lhota, must show “an equal commitment to maintaining the transit network’s new and existing infrastructure.”

That commitment is currently absent. “If the Senate’s budget resolution were enacted,” he wrote, “it would clearly call into question the State’s commitment to its transit system and will jeopardize the loan and our ability to complete East Side Access and the current phase of the Second Avenue Subway as well.” Of course, decades of divestment by the state and outright theft of supposedly dedicated transit dollars should have called into question that commitment long ago, but Lhota has to play politics here as well.

In its coverage of this looming fiasco, Streetsblog noted how GOP Senators in Albany will hold transit hostage in exchange for road dollars, and that is exactly what I noted last night. Upstate representatives claim the MTA does nothing for their districts when, in fact, these capital dollars support manufacturing in upstate towns. And so we will wait. We’ll wait for the horse-trading and the political machinations.

As I said last night, though, New York City and New York State cannot afford this game. If the Republicans dig on on spurious claims of being unaware of what the capital money will go toward, if they do not budget, the MTA could lose out on billions of dollars that are designed to help expand our transit network. That is a fate we should not and do not want to contemplate.

44 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Second Avenue Subway

Video: Scenes from the Second Ave. Subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 13, 2012

The Wall Street Journal and The Daily produced the above video on the Second Ave. Subway, and although it’s mostly just an overview of the project, the scenes are, as always, awe-inspiring. The reporters call it the most complex construction project in New York City, and that’s not far from the truth.

Meanwhile, the other Ben with a Second Ave. Subway-related site took a walk through the Contract One tubes recently and came back with some dramatic still photos from the construction site. It’s quite something to see how the work has progress since the TBM launched in May of 2010 and since my last visit in March of 2011. Just four years and 8.5 months of construction left, if all goes according to schedule.

6 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Load More Posts