MTA Economics

Report: MTA looking to sell 347 Madison

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 21, 2011

We first heard rumblings of an impending MTA real estate transaction back in March when The Wall Street Journal reported the authority’s interest in offloading its Midtown office space. Today, those rumors grow louder as The Times discusses the how the authority is looking to sell the buildings it owns at 347 Madison Ave. in an attempt to generate at least $150 million in revenue.

What I feared earlier this year would emerge a one-time attempt to cash in seems to be morphing into a long-term plan to consolidate office space. The authority purchased the three buildings on the block 44th and 45th Sts. over the span of 12 years. According to The Times, the authority paid $11.9 million for 347 Madison in 1979 and a total of $36 million for the two neighboring buildings in 1991. While the authority considered selling in 1998 and 2005, with the commercial real estate market on the upswing and the authority’s finances heading south, now may be the ideal time for either a sale or as “long-term lease.”

Charles V. Bagli reports:

Transportation officials are hoping that a developer will pay top dollar for the properties, three 20-story office buildings that form the eastern blockfront between 44th and 45th Streets. A buyer could demolish the structures and erect a modern skyscraper, and could also buy unused development rights over Grand Central Terminal and build an even taller tower than might otherwise be allowed. “The point is, it’s a valuable asset,” said Jeffrey B. Rosen, the transportation authority’s director of real estate.

The decision comes as developers are beginning to shake off a three-year hibernation following the collapse of a speculative real estate boom in 2008. Investors are once again buying office buildings, while developers are looking to revive dormant projects or start new ones. The three buildings might look bland and unappealing, but the allure is their location in a prime office district next to Grand Central, a workday entry point for executives coming from New York’s northern suburbs. The Yale Club is on the same square block.

Mr. Rosen said a sale, or possibly a long-term lease, would happen this time. Jay H. Walder, the authority’s chairman, has streamlined departments, cutting 3,500 positions in the last year from its New York City Transit, Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road operations. The authority is also evaluating its space needs at 26 other buildings it owns or leases.

As Bagli notes, the MTA’s recent cost-cutting measures have gutted the Madison Ave. buildings. Approximately 20 percent of the job cuts were at the MTA’s headquarters, and the remaining 873 employees are likely to be moved to 2 Broadway, Transit’s current headquarters in Lower Manhattan which houses 4200 MTA workers. Noticeably absent from the article and the MTA’s plans is any talk of the controversial 370 Jay St. building in Downtown Brooklyn.

In an ideal world, the MTA would be able to consummate a sale and generate would some sources say would be “substantially” more than $150 million in order to avoid a fare hike or service cuts later this year. Going forward, the MTA would reduce its costs by cutting down on its physical footprint as well. The savings wouldn’t be that steep, but they wouldn’t be insignificant either.

Of course, questions abound. Does it make sense to move Metro-North operations away from Grand Central? Would the authority be able to rent space in Midtown for the commuter rail administration at cheaper rates? Could they find a buyer willing to pay top dollar right now? None of these are insurmountable obstacles, but I have a sneaking suspicion a deal won’t materialize overnight.

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Subway Security

Still seeing something, still saying something

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 20, 2011

As the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks loom over the fall of 2011, the MTA has released new print and TV ads in its award-winning security campaign. Still urging those riders who see something to say something, the authority has released a series of new commercials and placards that will appear later this month. The new ads show what the MTA is calling “potential terrorists” leaving bags on subways, buses and commuter rail trains.

“The safety and security of our customers is our top priority,” MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder said in a statement. “We are hardening our infrastructure and conducting enhanced policing in coordination with our regional law enforcement partners. But these ads reinforce the important role our customers will always play in ensuring the safety of transit users throughout the entire MTA system.”

The latest public awareness campaign will cost the MTA $10 million, but the Department of Homeland Security is footing the bill. In return, the MTA granted DHS the license to use its slogan — “If you see something, say something” — in nationwide anti-terrorism ads. The latest spots, which include these print ads, were designed by Korey, Kay & Partners, an ad agency with long-standing business ties to the MTA.

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AsidesView from Underground

The dilemma of picking the best route

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 20, 2011

By and large, most subway trips aren’t fraught with choices. If I want to get from, say, the northern end of Park Slope to the western edge of Washington Square Park, I take a 20-minute ride on the B train, and I don’t have to think about it. But what happens when two trains leave the same station bound for the same stop but take two different routes? How do we pick which one to take?

In the Internet age, apparently the answer is to ask Quora as one Brooklynite has done. The subway-related question is a simple one: “If an uptown F and A train depart Jay St./Borough Hall at the same time, which one will get to West 4th first?” Generally, the two trains seem to take the same amount of time to traverse the stops in between, and if anything, the F will arrive a minute or so sooner. But then other considerations take over. While neither train has seats, the A at West 4th St. is two flights closer to street level than the F.

Admittedly, these conflicts of timing are rare, but they always pose a dilemma. Is it faster to take the 4 from Brooklyn to Yankee Stadium or the D train? Should I take the F to Forest Hills or the E? And of course, if you leave from points in Midtown bound for JFK, neither the E nor the A is faster than the other. Choices, choices, choices.

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Subway Security

Subway ejections down precipitiously in 2011

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 20, 2011

As I was browsing through the upcoming MTA Board committee meeting books this evening, I came across a surprising number. After ejecting 2676 straphangers from the system in March of 2010, police officers removed just 668 folks for misbehaving. That’s a decrease of 75 percent, and at a time when arrests are up a few percentage points, this drop in ejections is surprising.

It is, in fact, so surprising that Erik Ortiz of amNew York wrote an entire article on the topic. Riders speaking to the free daily spoke anecdotally of the atmosphere underground. “It’s a problem late at night. Recently there was a man speaking loud getting close to people. You can tell he was inebriated and that makes you feel unsafe,” one rider said.

Of course, drunk, loud people seem to be the least of our worries. Homeless people inhabit subway cars, and panhandlers are supposed to be removed from the subway system. Ortiz tried to determine the cause of the decrease, but answers weren’t forthcoming. He reports:

While authorities would not speculate why there are fewer people being kicked out of the subways, the transit union yesterday said the loss of station agents is a “critical factor.”

“Passengers in stations without an agent really have nowhere to complain other than the emergency call (boxes) that most people don’t even realize is there,” said Jim Gannon, a spokesman for the Transit Workers Union 100.

The union said the MTA has about 480 fewer agents than a year ago. An MTA spokesman declined to speculate on the ejection numbers. The NYPD was unable to say why officers are booting fewer riders, even as they cuff more crooks. Transit arrests are up, and increased nearly 8 percent from 2009 to 2010.

Gannon’s point seems to be the union’s rote response, but it also doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Even if a station agent placed a call to a police officer — a rare occurrence indeed — it would take more time to find the perp and remove him from the system than is worthwhile. Usually these ejections occur during cops’ routine rounds underground, and the presence of station agents shouldn’t cause a 75 percent year-to-year drop.

Furthermore, recent months suggest a pattern is emerging. As Ortiz reported, “In the first three months of 2011 compared to 2010, the number of riders being booted out of the subways dropped 66 percent, 7,794 to 2,631.” That seems fishy.

So what’s going on here? It seems to me as though the cops are scaling back their quality-of-life enforcement efforts underground. As the article notes, offenses for which one may be ejected include jumping a turnstile, panhandling, drinking or smoking, playing a radio audible to others (hah!) or carrying bulky items that interfere with subway operations. If cops are no longer patrolling for these offenses, ejections will decline.

Now someone just has to figure out why the cops aren’t on the case. After all, we’ve all seen instances undergound of ejectionable offenses, but rarely are people removed from the system. Instead, summons and arrest totals have increased, and the word “quota” somehow winds its way through my mind. After all, no one gets credit for an ejection when a ticket or arrest will do, and as NYPD staffing numbers are reduced, the quality-of-life violations undergound will likely increase.

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View from Underground

Graphic of the Day: A new decal for garbage cans

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 19, 2011

Courtesy of the MTA

A few weeks ago, Rolando Pujol of amNew York posted to twitter a photo of the MTA’s new garbage decals. I scoured the system looking for them but didn’t see them with my own two eyes until last night when I was waiting for a train at 96th St. Coincidentally, Michael Grynbaum wrote his Monday column on the new decal.

He talks of its design and origins:

The decal’s modern, stripped-down look is a stark departure from the agency’s previous approach to the school of informational trash can aesthetics. Close observers of the subway ecosystem will recall the last batch of garbage-related posters featured the rhyming instruction “Can It for a Greener Planet!” above a haiku-like poem: “Your City / Your Subway / Your Station / Your Litter.”

Now, poetry is out; clean, uncluttered design is in. The new poster takes advantage of the two-tiered structure of the average subway garbage can, or “trash receptacles,” as they are known in in-house M.T.A. parlance. The slogan, printed in large white-on-black letters on the top rim of the can, is easily spotted by straphangers; it is also the only three words on the entire poster, which depends on visuals rather than text.

To that end, the poster’s body has a simple pictogram of male and female stick figures depositing objects that look like coffee-cups into a trash bin. (The previous poster portrayed only a male stick figure.) The background is entirely black; the previous poster, with white and green colors, had a penchant for getting smudged and dirty.

The new stickers, designed in-house, first popped at Bowling Green and Whitehall, and 5000 garbage cans will sport the new look by the end of 2011. I do appreciate the design and how it mimics the overall look of the MTA’s rebranding campaign, but whether straphangers will make use of the garbage cans, new decal or not, remains to be seen.

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MTA Politics

On the pandering of politicians

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 19, 2011

The MTA’s financial problems are no secret. Transit supporters have been working in Albany to identify some source of funding for the $10 billion gap in the capital budget, and the authority has engaged in a very public effort to slash administrative costs. So what do the politicians do? They pander.

In his column this week, Daily News transit guru Pete Donohue takes Albany to task for both its failure to invest in the system and its blatant attempts at pandering. Highlighting a serious of legislative measures that, honestly, are unlikely to pass the Assembly and Senate, Donohue shows how, instead of crafting sensible policies, politicians are using their oversight powers over the MTA to score points.

Noting that New York is home to 600,000 college students, 500,000 public school students who commute, 600,000 seniors and 34,5000 police officers, he writes:

Members of our now slightly less dysfunctional state Legislature have introduced bills requiring the MTA to give free or reduced-price travel to more than 1 million additional New Yorkers – without providing an extra dime to make up for the lost revenue.

College students would get at least 25% off. Senior citizens wouldn’t have to pay at all. Off-duty fire marshals, off-duty police officers and retired cops would all get freebies. Under one of the bills, the MTA would be legally prohibited from charging public school students – something it threatened to do during a recent fiscal crisis. The proposed bill, however, wouldn’t even require that state and city government continue paying part of the tab as they have for years.

Not for nothin’, but someone has to pay for mass transit or the system goes to hell in a handbasket. “I understand the impulse of legislators to make sure students and others travel on subways and buses for free or at a discount, but Albany has to help fund these rides,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said. “Otherwise, commuters will be stuck with tens of millions in costs, putting pressure to raise the fare or cut service.”

Now, the bills themselves are hilarious in the earnestness. The measure to provide free service to public school students contains no provisions for additional funding from the city or state. The bill mandating free rides for seniors doesn’t even come attached with a justification memo while the discount for college students is designed to help make up for the increased costs of higher education. (Wouldn’t it make more sense to target loan rates instead of subway fares?)

My favorite though is the measure calling for free rides for retired police officers. Supposedly, “the presence of current and retired police officers aboard our mass transit systems would provide an added security benefit to places that are known to be targeted by criminals and where the threat level for terrorist attack is elevated. The intent of this act is to encourage the presence of men and women who possess a level of training to deal with criminal activity through their employment as police officers to use the transportation services of the metropolitan transportation authority so that they may be an extra set of eyes to aid law enforcement in maintaining security and safety aboard such transportation services.” I’m sure having more on-duty police officers would improve safety, but the argument for retired officers seems spurious at best.

Anyway, from a social perspective and in a vacuum, it’s hard to argue against any of these measures. In an ideal world, we would give students discounts while providing for seniors and figuring out ways to ensure that more police officers are patrolling vulnerable areas. But, as Donohue notes, “More important is the need to maintain and upgrade the system so millions of daily riders have a safe and reliable way of getting to work, school and the senior center.”

Right now, Albany has to figure out a way to hold off on the pandering long enough to fund the system. We need to make sure the physical plant is maintained and the system expands to meet demands. After all, what good are free rides if the trains don’t run?

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View from Underground

Video of the Day: Sesame Street underground

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 19, 2011

I’m pretty beat from my Passover seder tonight at the end of a long Monday, and so posting will be light this evening. Enjoy instead this classic trip underground with the Muppets as they take to a subway system shown on Sesame Street in the 1970s. There’s a cameo from a Vignelli map and some timeless references to tokens. It’s still crowded underground, but at least the rolling stock looks cleaner. Odds are, too, you’ll be humming this catchy tune all day.

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AsidesMetroCard

With surcharge looming, fare media liability could decline

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 18, 2011

Over the past few years, as the MTA’s fiscal outlook has remained bleak, news coverage has often focused on its fare media liability. Each year, the MTA recoups around $50-$60 million in unused fares when riders purchase pay-per-ride cards but fail to zero them out. As the discount math gets tougher, the amount recovered increases.

Amidst last year’s fare hikes, I reported that the MTA still expected to recover $52 million in fare media liability this year, and today, Jim O’Grady at WNYC verifies that figure. Interestingly, though, in his piece, O’Grady talks about the impact of the $1 surcharge.

The MTA hasn’t yet announced when it will implement the $1 surcharge on new MetroCards, but the authority believes the fee will lessen its fare media liability recovery figure. As straphangers have an incentive to zero their MetroCards, the MTA will see that total go down, but on the flip side, the $1 surcharge will generate around $20 million in revenue while reducing the agency’s fare collection costs. The authority currently spends around 15 cents of every $1 in revenue on fare collection costs, and a decrease of even one cent can save the authority hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They’ll forego the unspent rides in exchange for a more efficient collection system.

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AsidesFulton Street

Amidst Fulton St. construction, history unearthed

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 18, 2011

Whenever the MTA starts digging out subway infrastructure around Lower Manhattan, they seem to unearth history as well. Contractors wound up excavating a 350-year-old wall during construction of the new South Ferry terminal, and as work at the Fulton St. Transit Hub has continued, New York history has emerged in the process.

Near the corner of Fulton St. and Pearl St. on what was once primo riverfront property on the East River, crews recently unearthed a well on land owned in the late 1600s by Stephanus van Cortlandt. Andy Newman of The Times has more on this historic find. The wall, he said, was five feet wide and around four feet deep. The water wasn’t potable though, and archaeologists believe it was for “early-industrial use.” Alyssa Loorya said, “Any work or jobs you would do around the property. Washing, cooling. Anything that we could use gray water for, they could have used gray water.”

Within the well, excavators uncovered a ceramic bird from the early 18th century as well as a variety of other fragments from the era. City officials hope to put these on display in the lobby of the Department of Design and Construction in Queens. Meanwhile, city historians are intrigued by the historic well. “Everything you find,” Loorya said, “adds to the knowledge of material culture and lifeways of colonial New York.”

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View from Underground

When the signs aren’t close to current

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 18, 2011

Whenever I find myself in a train station that isn’t on my regular route with some time to kill, I start looking closely at the station. On Saturday night, I had a few minutes to spare at 14th St. and later at 23rd St. along the West Side IRT, and at both stations, I found a few MTA signs that have long since stopped serving their purpose.

The first sign I found that raised an eyebrow was at 14th St. This one discussed a construction project the MTA had been engaged in that would improve service. I’ve seen similar signs throughout the system, but lately, I’ve noticed more and more of them are out of date. The ones along the 53rd St. tunnel talk of improving E and V service and have completion dates that the MTA simply missed.

Anyway, this one was, um, older:

As you can see, the MTA has not found a way to remove a sign announcing a project that was due to wrap up 15 years ago. In November 1996, the Yankees had just won their first World Series since 1978; America had just reelected Bill Clinton to his second term; and the Unlimited MetroCard wasn’t yet a thing. The fares, by the way, were a $1.50.

This sign isn’t in a particularly hard-to-miss location. If you enter the 14th St. station on 7th Ave. and walk toward the fare control area, it’s hanging on the left in front of the walkway between 6th and 7th Aves. It’s not in bad shape either; it’s just a sign of another era in New York City history.

That’s now, however, the only relic I saw on Saturday night. On my way back from dinner, I had to wait in the 23rd St. station for a five minutes, and while examining the neighborhood map next to the now-shuttered station booth on the southbound side, I saw that the 9 train lives. This photo below is an excerpt from the neighborhood map at 86th St., but it shows the same problem:

This neighborhood map must be from at least 2005 when the 9 train made its last trip. For the West Side IRT, the presence of the 9 doesn’t matter because it doesn’t materially impact service, but the 9 train isn’t the only relic. The map at 23rd St. still featured the V and W trains, and I’ve seen remnants of the Manhattan Bridge service changes at various places throughout the system. More recently, I’ve noticed how the Rockefeller Center entrances still think the V is going to stop there.

On their own, these various mistakes and mishaps aren’t too damaging to the MTA. The sign from 1996 might as well be a permanent part of the station at this point, and few people are going to be confused by the presence of a 9 train on a map whose purpose is to guide straphangers above ground. But on another level, these anachronisms show a certain level of neglect. The MTA does not have the capacity to keep its extensive signage up to date. It can’t afford to spend the money to do so, can’t find the manpower to make the changes or some combination of both. And so the end result are signs warning us of construction projects from 15 years ago or urging us to take trains that no longer run.

As I said just a few weeks ago, the MTA posts signs for the benefit of its customers. If the signs are wrong, people either get lost or lose faith in the trustworthiness of the post information. It’s these little things that make it tougher for the MTA to gain public support at a time when political backing is sorely lacking.

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