AsidesService Cuts

A wait made longer by 30 seconds

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 15, 2011

To better align service along the 1 and 6 with load guidelines during the summer, the MTA has reduced service along those two lines, and boy, oh boy, is The Daily News unhappy about it. In a rather lengthy article, Pete Donohue reports that the authority has reduced peak service on the 6 from 23 trains per hour to 21 and off peak service from 15 to 13. Along the 1, Transit running 16 peak-hour trains, down from 18, and between nine and 11 off-peak hours down from 10-12. In other words, expect to wait 30 seconds more for the train.

The MTA says that these adjustments are merely season as ridership slumps in the summer with school out and families head on vacation. “These are seasonal adjustments we’ve made based on declining ridership resulting from summer vacations and are similar to the seasonal adjustments we have been making along certain bus routes,” Transit said. “In most cases, customers would have to wait an extra 30 seconds for a train.” Still, that didn’t stop the News from finding irate customers along the IRT. “Whoever created the schedule should be forced to ride the 6 train all day,” rider Mary Dohnalek said in a letter, seemingly penned before service was scaled back, to Transit.

I always find it tough to stomach any service scalebacks because it always seems to take longer to restore service, but a Transit spokesman assured me that full service would be restored when school starts again. “Both of these routes have very frequent service, so the customer impact is small and there are multiple benefits, including operating more cost-effectively, reducing our energy use, which has an added environmental benefit,” a Transit spokesperson said to The News.

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MTA Technology

All of the technology in the world…

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 15, 2011

The countdown clocks at Nevins St. last summer forecasted a long wait. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

It’s funny to see how technology can take over our lives. We grow so accustomed to something we didn’t have before — something we might have gone years or decades without — but once it’s there, we can’t live without it. When it’s gone, things don’t seem right, and we grow impatient. We want it back. We want it to work. We want that convenience.

A few years ago, the only countdown clocks in New York were a part of a pilot program along the L line. They usually worked (although sometimes threatened 54-minute waits for trains that were just a few stations away), and only a small subset of subway riders had the chance to enjoy them. Today, that picture has changed as countdown clocks are available at nearly every A Division station. If I have a choice between two rides, I’ll pick the route with the clocks. It makes waiting for a train seem like an exercise in calm patience instead of frustrated futility.

That said, the countdown clocks are far from perfect. They’re still very much a work in progress and as they like to remind us, undergoing tests. As with any computer equipment, extreme temperatures seem to cause them trouble, and I’ve received some recent complaints about outages at 86th St. on the East Side IRT and other high-volume stops where passengers grew to depend on the clocks. Considering we didn’t have them a few years ago, straphangers clearly appreciate and depend on the key bits of information these signs provide.

Yet, even as the countdown clocks provide straphanger who are waiting for trains with some modicum of peace of mind, they have their limitations. We might know how far away the next train is based on an algorithm that uses the subway system’s signals, but the people in the stations who are supposed to help out do not have access to the same information.

Take, for instance, this tale posted to Subchat last night. With a 12-9 in the Bronx causing a diversion along the 2 and 5 line, a man and his niece had to negotiate a variety of changes, block tickets and transfers between buses and subways to reach a station being serviced, and along the way, they encountered a bus driver, a station agent and an MTA Customer Service representative on the phone. None of the people they spoke with had the right information about the service change or the fare policies.

I’ve long beaten the customer service drum on Second Ave. Sagas, and over the past few years, the MTA has seemingly tried to improve the way they relate to their customers. But it’s a two-way street. We might benefit from the countdown clocks, but once installed, those are a very passive way of delivering information. The MTA still doesn’t have an efficient way to inform their workers in the field what’s happening or coordinate updates between those folks on the phone and those workers overseeing changes. Thus, customers looking for reroutes are often left in the cold.

When the Fulton St. Transit Center opens in 2014, it will, according to a NY1 report, have all electronic signage. “We will not have paper any longer,” MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu said. “When you see, for example, a sign sending you to, let’s say the A, C, 4, 5 and so forth, it will be in electronic fashion that will emulate the way the signs look today.”

Electronic signage can be great for customization. If train designations are changed, if routes are altered, they can be updated with a push of a button. If something is temporarily wrong, they can be used to broadcast that message. Ultimately, though, if no one is there to coordinate updates and provide timely information, real-time delivery solutions can only be one half of a customer service product, and it takes two to tango.

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Congestion Fee

The case for tolls: Free bridge traffic up

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 14, 2011

As some of the city’s East River crossings remain tolled while others are free, city drivers have engaged in “bridge shopping” in the wake of the recent MTA toll hikes, the city’s Department of Transportation has found. In a recent report, the agency found that traffic on the tolled bridges declined while volume across the free bridges has increased by a corresponding amount. While DOT refused to speculate on the connection between the two, the ties seem rather obvious to me.

The New York Post has the numbers:

Data compiled by the city’s Transportation Department showed that traffic volume on all four of the tolled bridges and tunnels across the East and Harlem rivers fell between 2008 and 2009, while it increased on 10 of the city’s free bridges. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel took the biggest hit, losing 4,363 of its customers, or 7.9 percent, during the financially perilous one-year span…

During that same period, the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges added a total of 4,246 vehicles to their annual count — nearly the same number that abandoned the Battery Tunnel. Those three bridges, of course, don’t cost a cent.

A similar trend was evident at the tolled Henry Hudson Bridge, where traffic was down by 3.6 percent, or 2,494 vehicles. The free alternative, the Broadway Bridge, saw a corresponding jump of 2,300.

Traffic expert and long-time toll advocate Sam Schwartz bemoaned the environmental impact of the so-called “bridge shoppers.” “It’s really very bad for the environment. They’re polluting a lot, driving extra miles, using more gasoline,” he said while arguing that the free bridges should be tolled — as they were in the early 1900s — in order to encourage efficient driving, reduce congestion and generate more revenue.

Of course, James Vacca, the head of the City Council’s transportation committee and a representative that hails from a district in which car ownership rates is higher than the city average, had a different take. “We may be reaching the point of diminishing returns with the constant toll and fare increases,” he said. “If they keep raising it further, I’m worried about the impact on jobs. The reality is, some people do have to take their cars to work.”

I know Vacca must balance the demands of his car-owning constituents with his role as head of the transportation committee, but his has been and always will be a spurious argument. Those, such as plumbers, electricians and delivery services, who “have to take their cars to work” are in the best position to pass along any tolls or fees to their customers, and anyone who drives in just to pay to to park in Manhattan can afford the East River Bridges. If they can’t, numerous subway lines serve the same areas.

At some point, common sense will overtake a debate built on strawmen, but while our politicians refuse to see the need to reduce congestion while generating revenue, local roads and free bridges will continue to see traffic increase.

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AsidesBuses

MTA adding security cameras to over 300 buses

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 14, 2011

Over the past few years, a few high-profile incidents involving unruly passengers and bus drivers have made the headlines. One driver was assaulted when she refused to allow a 17-year-old to bring her dog on board, and a 2008 murder has long led to calls for increased driver safety measures. The MTA, under union pressure, is now ready to act.

While a plan to install driver partitions is still in the pilot phase, the MTA announced that it will be installing security cameras on 341 buses around the city. Each bus will be equipped with six cameras — five on the outside, one on the inside — that will store but not transmit a video. The $10 million project expected to be completed within nine months will bring the total number of video surveillance-equipped buses to 426 — or around seven percent of the city’s fleet. The program will keep us safe,” Willie Rivera, a union official said to New York 1.

Once the 341 cameras are installed, the MTA will make a decision on whether or not to outfit another 1100 buses at a cost of $18,000 per bus. “Unfortunately, our streets can be kind of rough, but we’ve been testing this system for over a year now, and so far it’s stood up to the rigors of bus service,” Kenny said. Bus drivers certainly need more physical protection, and this is a step in the right direction.

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MTA Politics

Squadron: ‘Review weekend ridership’ on the L, F

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 14, 2011

When The New York Times broke the news earlier this week that weekend subway ridership was on the rise, I knew it would only be a matter of time before New York politicians began to call for investigations, studies and audits of the MTA. With weekend service marred by construction projects and route diversions, these politicians wouldn’t let an opportunity for exposure slip by, and perhaps, something good could come of their calls as well.

The representative who rode to the proverbial rescue is one who has worked closely with the MTA, and his results have produced good in the past. Daniel Squadron, the State Senator from New York’s 25th District who represents the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, put out a call for a study. This isn’t the first time Squadron has issued such a call. In fact, in 2009, he urged the MTA to assess the F train performance, and the authority eventually vowed to make some improvements to the much-maligned route in Brooklyn.

This time, Squadron has written to request a review of the L train’s performance. Using the report from The Times, the Senator said in a statement, “Today’s report underscores the fact that weekend subway service is simply not keeping up with New York. Working together in 2009, we improved F service and created a model for future progress. Now we must reapply that experience and ensure dependable service every day of the week.”

A letter he penned to Transit president Thomas Prendergast expressed similar sentiments. “At some stations on the L and F lines weekend ridership is as high – or higher than – weekday ridership,” he wrote. “Yet the trains’ schedules do not account for the higher weekend usage. I would also like to request that the MTA review weekend ridership on the L in Williamsburg and the F in the Lower East Side, with the goal of creating a schedule that is more reflective of ridership patterns. This would not just make the subway more convenient for riders. By drawing weekend visitors to these neighborhoods underground and off of surface transit, it would also improve quality of life in these areas.”

I am certainly sympathetic to Squadron’s calls, and I’m glad he’s the one latching onto the report. But from the get-go, I wonder how much Transit can do to improve the situation. I took a look at the turnstile data from June to check out what The Times discovered, and I was surprised to see a nearly negligent difference between weekend and weekday ridership at the Bedford Ave. stop in Williamsburg. But east of Williamsburg, ridership drops precipitously. The same happens to the F when you compare weekend travel to Second Ave. with the rest of the line.

It seems as though Squadron and others want the MTA to add service to the lines for the weekends, but it doesn’t make much sense. As long as train crowds are within load guidelines and demands further along the routes do not dictate more frequent service, the MTA likely won’t add routes to service a few stops. They could, however, look to shorter service. The L train has a switch just east of Bedford and one past Myrtle/Wyckoff. It’s possible that the authority can run extra trains from 8th Ave. to Myrtle Ave. and then them back around to provide more service over the popular parts of the route.

Right now, though, the MTA has its request, and it knows its limitations. Work must go on, and service demands generally aren’t as high on the weekends as they are during the week. The authority can’t handle a few isolated peaks at the expense of its bottom line, and the valleys are steep. But Squadron has issued its charge, and the authority will respond in turn.

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AsidesQueens

LaGuardia, LaGuardia, where art thou, LaGuardia?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 13, 2011

“So near and yet so far” could very well be the motto of LaGuardia Airport. Nestled north of Astoria, the airport isn’t very subway-accessible, and in fact, NIMBY opposition to a subway expansion shot down plans to extend the N to the airport. Now, as a I reported a few weeks ago, various stakeholders are working on an access plan for the aiport that will ostensibly focus around a potential bus rapid transit corridor. Now that the first meeting is in the books, however, it seems as though the MTA, DOT and Port Authority will engage in a full alternatives analysis.

The slides from the late June meeting have hit the web, and the agenda is clear: With 88 percent of LaGuardia customers taking taxis or private cars, the various stakeholders are going to try to develop better access into commercial hubs in Astoria, Harlem, Midtown, Jackson Heights, Flushing and the Bronx. The alternatives under consideration will include not only bus rapid transit, the long-shot subway and the painfully slow ferries, but also some more intriguing options: streetcars, light rail and an AirTrain-type automated guideway system. An airtrain over the Grand Central right-of-way would better connect the subway to LaGuardia.

Over the next few months, the three agencies will hold a series of outreach meetings as they plot out alternatives and potential alignments. The report calling for the locally preferred alternative is due next May with implementation to begin in 2013. Within five years, perhaps LaGuardia will be far more accessible than it is today with only some local Queens buses and the lonely M60 provided public transit service.

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MTA Economics

Report: Despite staff cuts, MTA payroll up in 2010

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 13, 2011

The MTA engaged in a very public and heated battle to slash staffing numbers last year in an effort to keep payroll expenses level, and it almost worked. According to a new report from the Empire Center, the MTA’s payroll increased by only $71 million — or 1.4 percent — last year as its headcount declined by 852 employees. The average MTA salary comes in at $71,237.

The report, a project of the conservative-leaning Manhanttan Institute, can be interpreted in numerous ways, and it again highlighted the MTA’s overtime expenses as labor costs will move to the forefront this fall. The topline findings are as they always are: More than 10 percent of the MTA’s workforce — administrative or otherwise — earned over $100,000 last year while 268 employees doubled their base pay through overtime and three tripled theirs. Jay Walder led the pack with his $350,000 salary while seven other executives earned more than $241,000. One Long Island Rail Road conductor earned $240,489, three times his base pay, through overtime while another took home $230,069. As the Center’s list of 100 highest paid employees shows, the top earners are split amongst administrative personnel and unionized workers.

The center, meanwhile, highlighted the engineers and conductors making bank via overtime. They found the following in the $150,000 club:

  • 53 Metro-North conductors who averaged $90,367 over their base salaries of $76,127;
  • 19 Long Island Railroad foremen who averaged $82,111 over their base salaries of $81,946; and
  • 15 Metro-North engineers who averaged $75,929 over their base salaries of $80,521.

The MTA laid the blame for the payroll increase on the shoulders of its unionized workers. “In 2010, the MTA eliminated 3,500 positions, froze managerial salaries for the third straight year and cut 15% of administrative payroll, en route to an annual budget savings of more than $500 million,” the authority said in a statement. “Nonetheless, payroll did increase from 2009 to 2010 due to the 4% wage increase awarded by an arbitrator to the members of TWU Local 100.”

Nicole Gelinas analyzed the numbers and found that with fewer workers, those remaining are earning more due either to the TWU raises or overtime. She again noted how benefits have backed the MTA into a corner. “Without a doubt, these jobs are tough; it’s easier to write newspaper columns than to walk hot tracks or sit in a booth all night. But these jobs are not poorly paid,” she wrote. “The average New Yorker in the private sector earns about $55,120. The MTA worker earns 31 percent more — and has retirement security, while people in the private sector worry about whether they’ll be able to retire at all.”

Lee Zelding, the payroll tax employees who seemingly fails to understand how MTA payroll expenses and overtime allocation work, also issued a pointed statement: “Once again, a new report has been released highlighting the MTA’s continued fiscal mismanagement. This time the issue is with the MTA’s payroll. Whether it’s increasing payroll expenses, excessive salaries for administration, or abusive overpayments to employees, the MTA continues to come up short in bringing the expense side of the ledger in line with the revenue side of the ledger,” he said without making much sense.

Ultimately, it’s going to cost money for the MTA to stay afloat. New York straphangers want clean subways, and they want on-time performance. They want better facilities and more reliable rush hour trips. They want things that cost money — from track worker salaries to management. The MTA is going to try to freeze wages. Yet, at a certain point, overtime expenses are cheaper than hiring more workers, and labor costs are relatively fixed. That payroll went up only by 1.7 percent seems like a step in the right direction even if the path to fiscal responsibility has a long way to go.

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Second Avenue Subway

Underneath 2nd Ave., inching closer to a subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 13, 2011

In mid-June, Adi, the Second Ave. TBM, was digging past 76th Street.

As this site nears its fifth birthday — I’ll reach the half-decade mark in late November — my thoughts have often turned toward the Second Ave. Subway. I started this site in 2006 when it became clear that Sen. Chuck Schumer and the then-newly empowered Senate Democrats would offer substantial funding to New York City for the completion of the first phase of the Second Ave. Subway. After 70 years of planning and numerous starts and stops, a salvation for the congesting East Side IRT and access for those who live on the far East Side was on the horizon.

Of course, that was before the market went south, before Lehman Brothers collapsed, before the state only guaranteed funding for two years of the MTA’s key 2010-2014 capital plan that would have all but guaranteed enough money to cover Second Ave. Subway construction. Economically and politically, things are much different than they were five years ago.

Yet, I feel more confident today that Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway will be completed — by 2016 or 2017 — that I have at any time earlier in this website’s life. The simple truth is that the MTA has spent too much money and expended too many resources to pull up stakes now. The western tunnel is complete; the eastern tunnel is two-thirds of the way to its destination at 63rd St. The federal government expects this project to be completed, and numerous other stakeholders do as well. It will get finished even if the fights over funding are far from over.

What is still surprising to me, though, is just how much remains to be completed. The MTA is quite pleased that Adi, the tunnel boring machine, will soon reach its southern destination, and the completion of the two tunnels should be viewed as a major milestone. But this blog will have to double in years before I have a chance to attend the ribbon-cutting along Second Ave. That’s a crazy long construction timeline.

That said, the MTA is moving forward. As The Daily News reported, Capital Construction is gearing up to award a few key contracts. The contracts, according to Pete Donohue, are for “tracks, signals and communications equipment,” and it is in the words of The Daily News, one of the project’s “last major construction contracts” as the Dec. 2016 completion date inches closer. “The Second Ave. subway is no longer just a blueprint – we’ve made enormous progress and we’re committed to getting it done,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.

The finer print is available on the MTA CC procurement page. The authority plans to open C-26009 on July 28. As the Solicitation document notes, that contract is to last 61 months. That timeframe brings us up to the revenue date for the Second Ave. subway.

Yet, stormclouds are brewing on the horizon. As Donohue reports, the MTA still has to cover approximately $940 million in funding for SAS. It is anticipated that the federal government will cover some via infrastructure grants and that Albany will guarantee the rest through legislative action this fall when it finally takes up the MTA’s capital funding gap. But transit advocates are worried about belt-tightening in DC, and even with union, advocate and contractor pressure, Albany sometimes marches to its own drum.

So we wait. Since the 1930s, the Second Avenue Subway has come to symbolize infrastructure ineptitude on the part of New York City, its planners and politicians. Its construction has always preceded economic downturns, but the MTA seems intent on pushing through. The first five years have come by pretty quickly; now we just have to wait out the remaining five.

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Straphangers Campaign

Straphangers: 1 in 3 subway payphones broken

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 12, 2011

This payphone at the 7th Avenue station on the Culver Line won't be too useful. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

Nearly 33 percent of subway payphones at the system’s 40 busiest stations are not in working order, according to a report released today the Straphangers Campaign. With subway cell service still a work in progress and years away from becoming a system-wide reality, these numbers do not bode well for emergency communications or response efforts. “About a third of subway phones do not fully work,” Cate Contino, coordinator for the Straphangers Campaign said in a statement. “And that’s a problem for many riders.”

For what it’s worth, back in 2007, the Straphangers found that 29 percent of payphones were nonfunctioning. That survey had a margin of error of +/- 4 percent, and while the methodologies have changed, the results have not.

To assess payphone functionality, the Straphangers’ volunteers tested 740 phones in the 40 most-used underground subway stations between July 14 and August 16, 2010. Thirty-one percent of those were deemed to be in non-working order, and as the Straphangers noted in their survey, these findings likely conflict with Verizon’s contractual obligations to “exercise good-faith effort to clear 95% of all known troubles within 24 hours.” (Before 2005, Verizon had to maintain 95 percent of phones as “fully operative and in service at all times,” but a change a few years ago lessened their upkeep burden.)

The Straphangers issued their key findings in bullet form:

  • The best of the most-used underground stations – with 100% of payphones functioning – is the 33rd Street Station on the 6 train on the Lexington Line.
  • The worst of the most-used stations – with only 29% working phones – is the 77th Street station also on the 6 train on the Lexington Line.
  • The leading reason for phones being rated as non-functioning was no dial tone (33%) followed by: cannot connect to a 1-800 test number (21%); coin falls through (14%); won’t return coin (13%); coin slot blocked (11%); and bad handset (7%).
  • In all, 740 payphones were tested. Of these, our surveyors found that 509 (69%) of these were in functioning order.

According to the Straphangers, their results jibe with an independent study conducted by the MTA. That report found 30 percent of payphones with “service affecting troubles,” and the two methodologies were largely in line. An internal MTA study conducted last year, however, found that 92 percent of all payphones and every one of Transit’s 468 were in working order. The Straphangers believe that since the internal examiners did not perform a “coin drop” test, those results are likely inflated. Plus, considering cell phone penetration, it matters less if a payphone at an aboveground station is working.

Ultimately, a few forces are at work here. On the one hand, subway payphones are scarce. I’ve seen units removed from West 4th St. and from the Bryant Park stop, to name a few, and those that still exist are barely touched. They’re dirty and largely inconvenient. But in the case of an emergency, the system needs functional communications devices, whether those are payphones or intercoms. From the sound of it, though, one out of three payphones just won’t do the job.

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MTA Technology

‘There’s a transit app contest for that’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on July 12, 2011

Subway map via iPad? There's already an app for that. (Photo by Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Patrick Cashin)

After announcing an app development contest yesterday with a grand prize of $5000, the MTA and ChallengePost hope that there’s going to be an app for that soon. With the goal of challenging programmers and developers to create apps that increase access to information and improve the travel experience for New York’s 8.5 million daily bus and subway riders, the authority announced yesterday a mobile app contest, and I, along with eight others, will be one of the judges.

“Over the past two years, we’ve made more and more information available to app developers, and we’re thrilled that they’re taking this information and using it to benefit our customers,” MTA Chairman Jay Walder said in a statement. “Now, through this competition, we are taking the next step to engage with the app developer community to encourage the creation of even more useful apps.”

The idea is a simple one: Between now and September 26, developers are invited to submit their apps at MTAAppQuest.com. The panel of judges — leaders in the online, digital development and transit fields — will judge them from Oct. 3 through Oct. 26, and the public will have a chance to vote on their favorites as well. The winners will be announced on Nov. 1, and the Grand Prize includes $5000, paid by ChallengePost, and a custom five-foot subway sign from Underground Signs. The second and third place entries will also receive prizes, and ChallengePost will name five honorable mentions and two popular choice winners.

Joining me in the judges booth will be a cross-section of folks from across the digital sphere. Take a look:

  • Jen Chung, Executive Editor, Gothamist, and Co-Founder, Gothamist LLC
  • Jeff Ferzoco, Creative and Technology Director, Regional Plan Association
  • Stephen Goldsmith, Deputy Mayor for Operations, City of New York
  • Mark Gorton, Founder and Chairman, OpenPlans and Founder, Tower Research Capital LLC
  • Wael Hibri, Chief Enterprise Information Officer, Metropolitan Transportation Authority
  • Noel Hidalgo, Director of Engagement Technologies, World Economic Forum
  • Lawrence Levy, Executive Dean, National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University
  • Rachel Sterne, Chief Digital Officer, City of New York

In conjunction with the contest, the MTA has also released new datasets for developers with more to come by July 21. The new sets include location-based data on subway platforms, turnstiles, elevators and the remaining station booths; historical data showing times and locations of the 4, 5 and 6 trains; and performance data for all MTA agencies for the past three years.

Personally, I’m pretty excited about the potential for this contest. Already, the MTA’s App Center features over 30 transit-related packages, and with the potential for more, the missing bits of information that the MTA doesn’t supply can be provided by entrepreneurial developers. I’ll have more about the contest as it elapses, but in the meantime, get those apps started. [MTA App Quest]

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