AsidesTWU

Daily News: TWU must be prepared for ‘tightened belts’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 3, 2012

As 2012 dawned, the day of reckoning for the MTA and TWU drew ever closer. In 12 days, the union’s current contract will expire, and John Samuelsen and Joe Lhota are working to forge a settlement. Still, the MTA’s fiscal reality requires a net-zero increase in labor costs or else the riders will have to pay. That is a point not lost on the editorial boards of the city’s newspapers.

Yesterday, the Daily News’ editors chimed in with their take on the labor situation. Noting that an arbitration panel recently determined that Long Island Bus workers will have to forego their expected three percent raises in 2011 since the MTA doesn’t have the money for it, the News called upon the TWU to take note and expect to give out concessions. “This is a time for tightened belts,” the editorial said. “Any and all raises will have to be bought with work rule changes and productivity gains.”

Over the last three years, as TWU members have enjoyed raises, the MTA has slashed its administrative payroll while freezing wages. It’s creating to something of a brain drain at MTAHQ, but that’s a problem for a different post. Now, it’s time for the TWU to show flexibility. As the News says to Samuelsen, “He should remember that the best interests of all concerned — taxpayers, riders and workers — are to keep the MTA as efficient as it can be.” That will be a key point over the next few weeks as the two sides work toward a deal.

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Service Cuts

On slower commutes during ‘minor’ holidays

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 2, 2012

A few months ago, in early October as Columbus Day dawned, the MTA announced a plan to reduce service on so-called minor holidays. For some days — the weekdays after Thanksgiving and the week in between Christmas and New Years — the MTA finds that ridership doesn’t hit peak loads, and running reduce service on the IRT lines will save the authority a few hundred grand a year. For $200,000 in savings, I thought the plan was worth a shot, and then, I had to take the subway last week.

Like many New Yorkers, I didn’t have off the days in between Christmas and New Years. I took a pair of vacation days last week but still went to work on Tuesday and Wednesday. I noticed longer waits for a downtown express train at Grand Central during the evening rush hour and longer waits for a Manhattan-bound local from Grand Army Plaza in the morning. Trains, because of the long waits, weren’t noticeably emptier, but it took me longer to get to work.

Yesterday was something of a minor holiday as well. The vast majority of office workers had off, and the MTA was running trains on a reduced Saturday schedule. During a midday ride to and from Manhattan, I had to wait nine minutes for an uptown local at Chambers St. and eight minutes for a downtown express at the same stop two hours later. Even for weekend service, the trains seemed slow.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers are always on the go. While the trains may be less crowded, that doesn’t mean we still don’t need them just as much. So how’s the MTA faring with this new “minor” holiday project? Michael Grynbaum of The Times checked in with an answer. The MTA claims the trial is designed to address times when the authority is running “more service than is required,” but that’s a nebulous idea. We require a vibrant and efficient subway system, and sometimes, that means trains won’t be full. If the MTA offered only what was required, subway service would be even slower than it is today.

As Grynbaum reports, straphangers and rider advocates are skeptical of the new service levels. He writes:

“I got on the 6 train from 110th Street at just about 8:30, and it was a solid 10-minute wait for a train,” said Chris Daly, as he waited for the Lexington Avenue local to ferry him home from a crowded platform at Grand Central Terminal on Thursday evening. “It’s usually six minutes, tops, in the morning,” Mr. Daly, 37, said, craning his neck to peek down the tunnel. “It was certainly unusual.”

As Mr. Daly waited, the platform was becoming increasingly claustrophobic. Hordes of puzzled tourists, many with rolling suitcases attached, poured down the staircases. Above Mr. Daly’s head, the L.E.D. countdown clock flashed an update: the next northbound No. 5 train was still 13 minutes away…

Reached this week, Mr. Albert, the chairman of the New York City Transit Riders Council, said his feelings on the program had not much improved. “I don’t know where they get this information from, that people aren’t working, but that’s pretty presumptuous, isn’t it?” Mr. Albert asked. “I see tons of tourists. Are the subways less crowded for anyone riding them?”

“I don’t see Transit offering to add service at those times when it is really busy and you might need extra trains,” he added. “I just notice a penchant for taking it away.”

That last bit has, of course, been an MTA theme for a while. The authority has taken service away on buses and in the subways, but it has been years since an expansion of service. Money may be tight, but so too are your typical subway cars. At some point, the authority will have to find the right balance between service levels, wait times and crowding.

It might make sense to reduce service during minor holidays and lesser trafficked days, but it will also create a loop. Fewer people will take the subway if there’s less frequent (and convenient) service, and thus, the MTA will be able to cut service even further as that bare minimum level of train frequency nears. Personally, I noticed less convenient service last week, but I’ll keep taking the trains. No matter the wait, it’s the best way for me — and millions of other New Yorkers — to get to work.

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AsidesService Advisories

Trains, SAS operating on a Saturday schedule

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 2, 2012

As January 2 is a federal holiday commemorating the New Year, the MTA is operating subways on a Saturday schedule and buses on a Sunday schedule. Thus, I’ll be running this site on a weekend schedule as well and will not have the first real post of 2012 up until later in the evening. I hope you all had a safe and sound New Years Eve celebration. Here’s to a 2012 in transit that’s better for New York City than 2011 was. I’ll see you all back here later tonight.

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View from Underground

Second Ave. Sagas: 2011 in review

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 30, 2011

Every year as December draws to a close and we near another New Years Eve, I take some time to look back on the year that was. So here is my annual list of the top ten most popular posts on Second Ave. Sagas. They run the gamut from musings to news and provide a glimpse into some hot topics. With a new contract for the TWU on tap and another tough economic year ahead, we can only wonder what 2012 will bring.

1. Graphic of the Day: Pregnant on the Subway
My top post this year was a hot-button topic. Elizabeth Carey Smith of The Letter Office presented a graphic about being pregnant on the subway. She tracked those who would and would not give her a seat while she was pregnant, and her findings sparked a long debate over the proper subway etiquette when confronted with a woman who may or may not be with child.

2. Building a Better Subway Bench
Veyko, a Philadelphia-based design shop, unveiled a new bench for the City of Brotherly Love’s SEPTA subway stations, and I wondered if the modern and sleek design to could replace the frumpy wooden benches that mark New York City Transit’s system. The Philadelphia prototype is too expensive to mass market, but the agency is working on a different solution.

3. Photo of the Day: The 7 Line Extension Moves Onward
Patrick Cashin, the MTA’s photographer, released a series of images from inside the 34th St. station cavern as the 7 line moves forward. The new subway extension will be open within 24 months, but the station planned for 41st St. and 10th Ave. remains a lost opportunity.

4. Breaking: Second Ave. Subway Slashed to One Track
April Fools! Gotcha.

5. The View from Inside the Second Ave. Subway
In April, I took a tour of the Second Ave. Subway construction site and shared my photos from the trip. That subway extension won’t open for another five years, but construction is massive nonetheless.

6. A September Nostalgia Train with a Sponsored Twist
HBO sponsored the September Nostalgia Train to mark the start of the new season of Boardwalk Empire. The train ran along the West Side IRT route for a few weeks.

7. A Tale of a Viaduct, a Sign and the Need to Pay Attention
Despite years of planning and numerous community meetings, folks in Brownstone Brooklyn were still surprised and outraged when the MTA announced station closures along the IND Culver Line. I took residents to task for ignoring the news that impacts their commute. New Yorkers take subway service for granted and rarely pay attention to goings-on until it threatens their rides.

8. Photo of the Day: At 50th St., a Passageway Reopens
The MTA reopened a long-shuttered walkway between 7th and 8th Aves. at 50th St. earlier this year. The passageway had been closed in the early 1990s due to safety concerns, but with crime at near-record lows, the MTA has been able to reopen this out-of-system walkway.

9. End of the Designline for New Buses
After extensive testing, the MTA determined that Designline buses weren’t cut out for New York City streets.

10. Jay Walder to resign as MTA CEO and Chair
Without support from the governor and facing a tough round of negotiations with the TWU, Jay Walder resigned abruptly in late July. He left New York to take a high-paying job in Hong Kong, and the MTA is still waiting around for Albany to confirm his replacement, Joe Lhota. His departure was symbolic of an MTA brain drain that has seen many qualified managers and executives leave in the face of a multi-year pay freeze and no support from the government.

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AsidesSubway History

Link: Bruce Davidson’s subway photography

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 29, 2011

Bruce Davidson’s photographs of the subway from the early 1980s remain some of the more iconic images from the time period. His stark photos show the system at its nadir. Graffiti-covered trains and dark stations belie the dangers that were inherent in the subways at the time. We’ve come a long way from those days, and now Davidson’s images evoke a bygone era that we’d rather not revisit.

Earlier this year, Davidson’s book was reissued, and a few weeks ago, he penned an essay on his experiences for The New York Review of Books. In it, he talks about overcoming his fear of the subway as he rode into parts of town that a guy with a fancy camera would otherwise never visit. He speaks of approaching subjects to get their permissions for photos, and he relates a tale of getting mugged near Chauncey Street in Brooklyn.

Today, with subway crime far below record highs, we often take safety for granted, and the new rolling stock lends an air of sterility and security to our rides. But Davidson’s essay reminds us that we’re not far from those bad old days. Give it a read; it’s well worth it. (NYRB via Kottke)

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ParatransitTaxis

Accessible taxis could reduce Access-A-Ride costs

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 29, 2011

Over the past few weeks, New York taxis have dominated the transit headlines. Gov. Andrew Cuomo finally signed the livery cab hail bill, and wheelchair-accessible taxicabs took the spotlight. Despite the high costs of such access, the new plan calls for a steep increase in the number of wheelchair-accessible taxis. Meanwhile, a federal judge decided last week that New York City had to make its taxi fleet more accessible.

For regular subway riders, this news doesn’t seem to carry a big impact. It will be easier to flag down a cab in the outer reaches of New York City that do not enjoy regular yellow cab service, but outside of the money that should come the city’s way, it’s hard to see how these happenings could impact the MTA. They do, however, have the potential to solve a problem by reforming the way Access-A-Ride does business.

According to a report in Crain’s New York, the looming changes to the Taxi & Limousine Commission’s fleet could change Access-a-Ride for the better. Jeremy Smerd has more:

A year ago, the MTA launched a pilot program with the Taxi and Limousine Commission to test the theory that, because 80% of disabled riders do not use wheelchairs, the taxi fleet could handle much of the business now outsourced to private companies at an average cost of $60 per ride.

The program allows 400 riders to use a debit card to pay for taxi service. The passenger pays $2.25—the cost of a one-way subway ride—and the state picks up the rest of the tab. The agency estimates the program will save $34 a trip and, coupled with other changes, $66.2 million next year in paratransit costs. Advocates believe more savings—and better service for riders—would result from expanding the program to the outer boroughs, especially now that as many as 18,000 cars will be allowed to pick up street hails.

Advocates approached the idea of a dedicated debit card to use with livery cars nearly three years ago. They called it the Access-a-Card. But MTA officials balked at the idea because they worried that riders would take advantage of the program and drive-up costs, said Avik Kabessa, a member of the Livery Roundtable who was part of the discussions…The city is putting in place a dispatch system next year that would allow disabled riders to call 311 to get a wheelchair accessible taxi. But it remains unclear whether the Access-a-Ride debit-card pilot program will be expanded.

If the MTA can figure out a way to contain and reduce Access-A-Ride costs, they will gain a tremendous amount of financial flexibility. It often flies below the radar, but the ADA-mandated program costs the authority a few hundred million dollars a year. It’s not a particularly efficient program either with the cost per rider far exceeding that of even the most wasteful bus lines.

As the city gears up to address issues concerning taxi accessibility, TLC officials should work with the MTA to ensure cooperation on cost-reduction measures. The opportunity is there. Now, it’s just up to someone to seize it. Those New Yorkers who rely on the subways would reap the benefits, and those who use Access-A-Ride would find a more flexible and personal system at their disposal.

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AsidesView from Underground

On misplaced and misguided priorities

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 28, 2011

If anything defines the year in New York City transportation politics, it concerns misplaced and misguided priorities. We’ve seen politicians wring their hands over minor issues while ignoring systematic problems with transit policies. We’ve seen residents rise up against bus lanes and subway station entrances that would cause, at worse, minor inconveniences. We’ve seen ongoing construction at Fulton St. and a push to realize Moynihan Station, two billion-dollar projects that barely increase transit capacity. As money grows scarce, politicians prefer to invest in tangible monuments of their largesse rather than in behind-the-scenes increases to capacity.

Here, though, is a tale that takes the cake: James Vacca is about to take a hard line against a danger facing all New York pedestrians. He’s going after “rogue bicyclists.” Said the New York City Council Transportation Committee chairman, known for his windshield perspective, ““I get a lot of phone calls and a lot of concerns about rogue bicyclists. Too many bicyclists are going the wrong way on a one-way street. Too many of them are ignoring existing bicycle lanes and driving as they wish, and I think that we have to address that issue.”

Now, it’s true that a certain breed of bicyclists — mostly, I’ve found, delivery guys — are not respectful, but rogue bicyclists are hardly the problem Vacca makes it out to be. Rogue drivers, meanwhile, are responsible for over 75 deaths this year, but Vacca and his ilk could care less about making roads safer for all. Vacca, though, tries. “My priority is protection of the pedestrians, and my mantra is that the pedestrian is always right, even when the pedestrian is wrong. Everything I do is governed by that basic foundation.,” he said to The Post. When he starts working to curtail dangerous driving and giving pedestrians back more street space, I’ll believe it. In the meantime, we’re just seeing another example of misplaced and misguided priorities in a year full of them.

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Public Transit Policy

Building a home for Amtrak they can’t afford

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 28, 2011

A cutaway of Moynihan Station as seen from Penn Station.

Over the past decade and a half, spurred on first by Daniel Patrick Moynihan and later by supporters who wanted to continue his efforts, well-connected New Yorkers have fought for an expansion of Penn Station into the Farley Post Office. Part of their reasoning is to boost train service and ease customer congestion underneath Madison Square Garden while the rest of their efforts are driven by the idea of a Great Public Work. Penn Station, they rightfully say, is an eye sore. It’s dirt, dingy and ugly, and the post office would provide a setting of grandeur that could right the wrong of destroying the original Beaux Arts building.

To that end, the project has been divided into two parts. Phase 1 includes better egress points into the current Penn Station, and it is currently funded and ongoing. Phase 2, which will cost upwards of $1 billion, involves moving Amtrak’s operations into the Moynihan Station area and perhaps readying the station for high-speed rail if the stars and money align properly. That is more of a dream right now than anything else.

Lately, news about Moynihan Station has been scarce. After the October 2010 groundbreaking, the project has moved quietly forward, and only an announcement that the Port Authority will oversee the new station made a ripple earlier this year. Now, though, Amtrak is making noises about its eventual potential move to Moynihan Station. In fact, they won’t be able to pay the rent.

Bloomberg News had the report shortly before Chirstmas (and Eric Jaffe at The Atlantic Cities picked it up as well). Wrote Lisa Caruso:

For Amtrak to move more passengers on trains between Washington and Boston, its only profitable route, it must move out of New York’s Penn Station, said Drew Galloway, assistant vice president for the eastern region. The new space it covets is across the street, where New York state and two developers plan to transform the 97-year-old James A. Farley Post Office into a $1 billion train hall and retail complex.

The rub: Officials at U.S. taxpayer-subsidized Amtrak, which lost $1.3 billion last fiscal year, say they can’t afford to leave Penn Station, which the railroad owns, unless their new home is effectively rent-free. With the development’s finances unresolved, New York officials haven’t made guarantees.

…Amtrak won’t have to help pay to build its new home, Gilchrist said. How much it will contribute to operations is under discussion, though Washington-based Amtrak won’t occupy it if it faces more than a “modest increase” from costs at Penn Station, Galloway said in an interview.

Now, Amtrak can hardly be faulted for their stance here. After all, Moynihan isn’t their idea. In fact, David Gunn pulled Amtrak support from the Moynihan project because it does nothing to add track capacity into or out of New York City. It is simply an expensive cosmetic upgrade that helps ease overcrowding across the street. It is, Gunn said, “an example of how the whole transportation planning system has broken down. It was controlled by a bunch of rich developers.”

Current Amtrak officials are going to attempt to get creative with funding. They could lease out their current Penn Station space to offset costs, and developers in the area may look to throw in some millions as well. Yet, it’s the same story as the one we’re seeing downtown where billions are being spent on a PATH train that doesn’t add capacity while the upgrades at Fulton St. aren’t worth the dollars.

In a time when transportation money is scarce, the available dollars are being burned on things that look good instead of things that deliver better transportation service. If that seems backwards to you, well, that’s because it is, and until things change, we’ll be left with fancier train stations and no better service than what we already have.

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AsidesQueens

Rails-to-trails project in Queens inching forward

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 27, 2011

A few weeks ago, I explored an on-again, off-again movement in Queens to convert parts of the unused Rockaway Beach Branch line into a park. At the time, I was skeptical of the move because once these rail rights-of-way are converted to trails, they are never restored to their transportation functionality. Doing the same in Queens would forever deprive the area of a potential rail access point.

Now, we hear that activists in Queens are pushing forward with the newly-named QueensWay project. As The Daily News reports, those who are angling for a park have convinced the Trust for Public Land to seek out private funding for a feasibility study. Once conducted, this study will present the potential costs of the problem and the security, safety and engineering work that would have to be done along the 3.5-mile railroad ROW in advance of opening a park. “I think people see this as opportunity to take abandoned land and do something great with it,” Andrea Crawford, head of Queens’ CB9 and a member of the Friends of QueenWay committee, said. “It preserves green space and it opens up green space.”

I’m still skeptical of this effort. As I’ve said, the High Line works because it’s in a pedestrian-heavy neighborhood that already was a major tourist attraction. The QueensWay plans do not enjoy similar positioning in the city, and I would be far more intrigued by a feasibility study that assesses the challenges facing anyone who wishes to reactivate the rail line instead. For now, though, the project has the public’s attention, and I’ll keep an eye on it. You can too by following TheQueensWay on Twitter.

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Second Avenue Subway

NIMBY suit opposing 86th St. entrances dismissed

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 27, 2011

These proposed entrances for the Second Ave. Subway on 86th St. were the subject of a federal lawsuit.

NIMBYs, NIMBYs, wherefore art thou, NIMBYs?

While not quite the question posed by Juliet to Romeo, I often find myself asking why NIMBYs are constantly opposing any new public transit projects in New York City. A Transitway on 34th Street? That’ll cause a wall of buses. A train to LaGuardia that skirts around the edges of Astoria? That’ll disrupt a peaceful residential neighborhood. Subway entrances on 86th Street and Second Avenue? They’ll interfere with our precious driveway.

The final excuse was, as you may recall, one of the drivers behind a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a group of residents from 86th St. near Second Ave. These residents claimed that the MTA had “arbitrarily and capriciously” chosen to place new subway entrances on their blocks. The influx in pedestrians — who would be pointed away from the driveway — would harm Yorkshire Towers and its inhabitants, and the MTA, they claimed, did not properly assess the environmental impact of the entrances as they failed to consider new information as it emerged.

Luckily for the MTA and those eagerly awaiting better subway access, a judge earlier this month granted a motion to dismiss the complaint. Judge Thomas Griesa’s 16-page decision is available here as a PDF. Essentially, he granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss on a legal technicality. The Yorkshire Towers residents had 180 days from the government’s finding of no environmental impact on the MTA’s decision to locate the station entrances along 86th St., but they filed their lawsuit eight months late.

In reply to such an argument, the Yorkshire Towers plaintiffs attempted to claim that the MTA had an obligation to consider new information. As Judge Griesa dryly noted, however, the plaintiffs failed to present this new information in their complaint. Had the complaint not been time-barred, though, it seems as though Griesa would not have been too sympathetic to the claims set forward by Yorkshire Towers. But it matters little; they waited eight months beyond the statute of limitations, and the station entrances will go ahead as planned.

The staircases at Entrance 2 have been designed to minimize passenger flow in front Yorkshire Towers by siphoning riders away from the active driveway.

So the MTA can now move forward with work at 86th St. for these station entrances, and that happens not a moment too soon. A recent report to the MTA has found that the project is inching ever closer to its contingency timeline. Right now, the MTA has only 66 days’ leeway but five years of construction remaining until SAS Phase 1 hits revenue service. With the lawsuit out of the way, the MTA and its contractors can move forward at 86th St. without further delays.

Meanwhile, the NIMBYs lose. It’s a battle in a bigger fight for better transportation, and it’s part of living in a city. People will walk down your block, and the subway — a truly desirable thing — will open its doors down the street. Life will go on.

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