Second Ave. Sagas

ARC the Third: Amtrak’s Gateway to New York

by Benjamin Kabak February 7, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 7, 2011

Amtrak's Gateway Tunnel addresses many of the criticisms leveled at the ARC Tunnel.

Since Gov. Chris Christie first announced plans to put a hold on and then cancel the ARC Tunnel, New Jersey’s Democratic Senate delegation has been at odds with the state’s Republican executive. Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez have criticized Christie for sacrificing $3 billion in federal funding as well as the opportunity to expand rail access to New York City. Today, the two Senators have announced a plan to achieve greater cross-Hudson rail capacity while working with Amtrak and bypassing Christie’s control entirely.

Enter the Gateway Tunnel. This tunnel that Amtrak believes will take ten years to construct could be another answer to rail crisis the ARC Tunnel had been designed to address. It is similar to ARC’s Alt G plan and modeled on numerous Amtrak studies. Based on numerous reports, it may cost anywhere from $10-$13.5 billion, and once or if completed, it will allow 21 more trains per hour — 13 New Jersey Transit trips and eight Amtrak trains — into New York. The dearly departed ARC Tunnel would have allowed 25 more New Jersey Transit trains into the dead-end deep cavern underneath 34th St.

While the Gateway Tunnel expansion would allow fewer trains into the city, the new proposal addresses the biggest concerns ARC supporters — and opponents — had with the previous project. As Jim O’Grady for Transportation Nation and WNYC has reports, “Whereas ARC was supposed to terminate at platforms under Macy’s, a block east of Penn Station, Gateway would end a block to the south, nearer to street level. The block—West 30th and West 31st Streets between 7th and 8th Avenues—now mostly holds small businesses like restaurants, bars and a repair shop for musical instruments.” Metro-North too would be able to service the new Penn Station South. (For more from today’s unveiling of the Gateway Tunnel, check out this pdf.)

A satellite view of the New York side of the proposed Gateway Tunnel. (Via The Star-Ledger)

O’Grady had more on the early plans and the hopes that the Gateway Tunnel could usher in high-speed rail in the area as well. He writes:

A staff member for an elected official familiar with the project said Amtrak, which is taking the lead on the tunnel, would have to assemble properties on the Manhattan block to make it feasible. He said on the New Jersey side, Gateway would use a hole that construction crews had already started digging for the ARC Tunnel at Tonnelle Avenue near Secaucus…

An important part of the work would be to raise the Portal Bridge, a notorious bottleneck between Kearny and Secaucus over the Hackensack River. Trains must now slow to cross the 100 year-old bridge, or stop altogether while it is moved to let boats to pass by. A modernized bridge, along with a new tunnel’s added capacity, would speed up Amtrak’s service along the Northeast Corridor and help set the stage for future high-speed rail, should it ever arrive.

Meanwhile, Mike Frassinelli of The Star Ledger, who broke the story late last night, reports on how the Gateway Tunnel may conflict with New York City’s plan to send 7 train to New Jersey. The Senators and Amtrak are putting forward this proposal as an alternative to Bloomberg’s subway-based idea, and the federal officials hope to send the 7 not across the Hudson but to Penn Station. He writes:

Some transportation officials think the Gateway plan makes more sense than expanding the No. 7 subway line from New York City to Secaucus Junction, an idea floated over the last three months by the staff of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Under Amtrak’s best-case scenario, the No. 7 line would also be extended to Penn Station, between 31st and 33rd streets, two blocks west of the Empire State Building.

During the afternoon press conference announcing this tunnel, current Amtrak board member and former Port Authority head Anthony Coscia denied a conflict with the 7 extension. “Regardless of whether the 7 extension happens, in order for there to be high-speed rail in the Northeast corridor, Amtrak would still need to build this project,” he said.

According to Frassinelli, Lautenberg, the more vocal critic of Christie’s politicized move to block the ARC Tunnel, has been working with Amtrak since the fall. “New Jersey is facing a transportation crisis,” he said. “Our commuters are fed up with train delays that make them late to work and endless traffic that traps them on our highways when they want to be home with their families. When the ARC tunnel was canceled, it was clear to me that we couldn’t just throw up our hands and wait years to find another solution.”

By turning away from state-based solutions and relying instead upon a federal rail provider who would ideally use a mix of infrastructure dollars and private investment for this project, Lautenberg can effectively cut Christie out from the bulk of the decision-making. Although New Jersey and New York will likely be asked to add some money to the pot via New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority, if Amtrak takes the lead, it — and not New Jersey’s reticent governor — will be in charge of securing the finances and arranging construction.

Right now, as O’Grady notes, the parties have yet to figure out financing and haven’t set construction plans. Amtrak is requesting $50 million this week for an engineering study and hopes to rely on work previously completed for ARC. Even as questions remain, though, rail proponents who have recognized the cross-Hudson congestion are thrilled that Gateway is on the table even if it is ten years away.

“This is not ARC,” Martin Robins, director of Rutgers’ Voorhes Transportation Center, said to The Star-Ledger. “In some respects, it is a lesser project. But it is still a very significant project. There will be benefits that will reverberate throughout New Jersey. This can be a wonderful alternative.”

February 7, 2011 79 comments

Second Avenue Subway

ADI completes her western run under Second Ave.

by Benjamin Kabak February 7, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 7, 2011

A glimpse inside the western tunnel under Second Ave. This shot, taken at around 80th St., shows the muck train engine. (Photo courtesy of The Launch Box)

Updated (2:28 p.m.): Just yesterday I reported that the tunnel-boring machine was approaching the end of its western run, and today, the MTA announced that ADI, the TBM digging out the long-awaited Second Ave. Subway, reached that terminus over the weekend. Ben Heckscher at The Launch Box reports that the run was completed at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. The construction crews will now disassemble the TBM, pull it back out along the tunnel and reassemble it in the launch box for another run down Second Ave. The authority hopes to start digging the eastern tunnel by April with an estimated completion date by the end of 2011.

“Construction of this much-needed subway continues to move forward and this week marks another major accomplishment to transform New York as we know it,” MTA Capital Construction President Michael Horodniceanu said in a statement. “These are tangible results that will not only expand our capacity but will also bring new economic activity and growth to Manhattan’s Upper East Side and points beyond.”

During the western run, the TBM dug 7162 feet down Second Ave. but did not reach the existing tunnel at 63rd St. due to a curve too sharp for the TBM’s turning radius. The two tubes will be connected by blasting and digging work set to be done by the company tasked with building the 72nd St. station. The eastern run of the TBM will end at 63rd St. though because the curve from 63rd St. and Third Ave. to the straight shot up Second Ave. is shallow enough for the TBM to make it.

Of course, once the TBM runs are finished later this year, the hard work will only just begin. There is, after all, a reason why the Second Ave. Subway isn’t slated to open until nearly five years after the tunnel-boring machiens are through. Work crews will have to begin the arduous process of building out station caverns and modernized subway stations, constructing ancillary buildings and finishing the tunnels themselves. The completion of the first TBM is a major milestone for a project that has come to symbolize governmental inaction and ineptness over the past eight decades, but it is a small step on the way toward a new subway line.

Meanwhile, The Launch Box has some stunning photos inside the the western tunnel. Take a look at Part 1 and Part 2. The shots show the detail of the tunneling work, sandhogs working near the TBM cutter head and the muck produced by Adi as she heads south. These are truly stunning shots.

Sandhogs work behind the TBM to clear out loose debris. The machine is not in motion. (Photo courtesy of The Launch Box)

February 7, 2011 21 comments

MTA

Grading Jay Walder

by Benjamin Kabak February 7, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 7, 2011

Jay Walder has been the head of the MTA with the power of both the CEO and Chairman for 16 months, and it sounds as though he’ll serve out his tenure. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has seemingly indicated that he’ll keep Walder on board, and it’s the right decision. So how has Walder performed in his job?

A few weeks ago, Theresa Juva, amNew York’s transit beat writer, asked me to serve on a panel of transit-minded folk who would judge Walder’s tenure so far. Juva asked us to grade Walder in seven categories, and overall, we gave him a B. I, however, was one of two panelists to give him an A-. A. Scott Falk, a CB8 member, joined me in that grade, and Gene Russianoff gave him a B+. Bill Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA gave Walder a B while Lindsey Lusher Shute of Transportation Alternatives also gave him a B. Peggy Morales from CB 11 gave him a C for reasons that are seemingly out of his control.

Juva asked us to assess Walder on seven measures: cutting administrative costs, reducing service cuts, speeding up bus service, providing bus and train arrival updates, adding new fare technology, improving subway stations and communicating with riders on service changes. The grades I assigned to Walder diverge greatly across categories.

In the first category, I assigned Walder a B+. He’s managed to find over $500 million in annual administrative savings, but it seems as though the MTA could still be trimmed administratively. The authority has layers of management atop layers of managements, and it could still streamline back-office functionality.

In the second category, I gave Walder only a B-. Since coming into office, he has not made friends with labor, but he’ll have to in order to reduce the MTA’s costs of providing subway and bus service. Later this year, collective bargaining negotiations will take center stage, and Walder will have to work with a group of employees who do not like him. While transit advocates and those who want to see the MTA modernize are appreciative of Walder’s work, unionized workers hold him in contempt. To them, he is just another fat cat who collects a paycheck and does not understand the plight of his employees. How he leads negotiations later this year will determine his legacy.

Speeding up bus service has been one of Walder’s crowning achievements, and there, I gave him an A-. He has overseen the expansion of Select Bus Service into Manhattan, and the MTA, during his tenure, will help bring this service to 34th St. and to Brooklyn as well. Select Bus Service is not, however, solely his work as NYC DOT has spearheaded the effort and Walder has inherited a lot of the work. Still, buses are slowly improving across the city.

Where Walder has excelled — and where we expected him to excel — has been in the field of technology, and again, he earned an A- in this category. While the MTA has long tried to get real-time bus and subway tracking measures in place, under Walder, the MTA has stopped spinning its wheels. It recently unveiled an in-house bus tracking system that will soon spread from Brooklyn to Staten Island, and it will equip 200 subway stations with countdown clocks by the end of 2011. Walder hasn’t developed these plans, but he’s pushed them through toward completion.

In a similar vein, I gave Walder a B in new fare technology category. He has committed to a program that will lead to the death of the MetroCard, but although other transit systems have used contactless fare payment cards for half a decade or longer, the MTA won’t be ready to institute a replacement plan for three or four years. He has moved from a pilot program to a replacement program, but the time-to-live is longer than we would hope it to be.

I honored the MTA Chairman with his lowest grade when asked to assess how he improved subway stations. By and large, the MTA’s infrastructure has suffered as the authority has had to cut costs. To keep train service at least steady, the authority has cut back on cleaning costs, and we have dirtier trains and stations as well as more and more rodents to show for it. Walder has a plan to target high-volume stations, but areas from which most riders start their trips are dirtier. I gave him a C+ here but could have scored him lower.

Finally, Walder got a B+ when it came to communicating with riders — or at least attempting to — on MTA service changes. He has led a London-inspired redesign of the MTA’s weekly service advisory posters, and the website attempts to present service changes in an easier-to-understand format. He can’t, however, make more people read the signs, and until straphangers take those signs seriously and read the, the authority can only do so much in that regard.

So why then did I give the Chairman an A- when his average grade is closer to a B? Mostly, it’s a matter of circumstance. Then-Gov. David Paterson brought Walder back to New York with the promise of a fully-funded authority that needed to be ushered into the 21st Century. Instead, the former Transport for London official met his new job with word of a $300 million budget gap followed shortly by the theft of $143 million in dedicated funding by the legislators that approved his appointment. He went from enjoying a $0 balance to presiding over a $500 million deficit before his first three months on the job were out.

Since then, Walder has tried to minimize the service cuts while pushing forward on the capital investments. He has seen rider-oriented technology arrive in a system allergic to innovation, and he has cut costs in ways his predecessors had never been able to. Still, he hasn’t worked well with labor, and the next eight months could be just as important as the final 44 he has left in his tenure. The capital budget has a $10 billion gap, and the MTA’s arduous labor contracts are up for renegotiation.

This year won’t determine his ultimate legacy, but it will allow us to see in which direction the MTA is heading. Administratively, the authority on the right track, and I still believe Walder is the right person for the job. Still, as the MTA loses political and economic support, I wonder where our services will be in another 16 months.

Now that I’ve presented my views, how do you feel Walder has done? Vote in my poll below, and feel free to chime in with a comment.

What grade do you think Jay Walder deserves after 16 months on the job?

February 7, 2011 24 comments

Second Avenue Subway

Second Ave. TBM nearing end of western run

by Benjamin Kabak February 6, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 6, 2011

ADI, the tunnel-boring machine hard at work digging out the Second Ave. Subway, is just 82 feet away from completing the western tunnel, the MTA announced late on Friday. Once it reaches its end point, crews will disassemble the 485-ton, 450-foot long machine, pull it back to 92nd St. and begin its run through the eastern tunnel. The authority says that Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway remains on pace for a December 2016 opening date.

While this is but a small milestone on the path toward SAS completion, it’s a key one. The MTA now has one full-length tunnel from 96th St. to 63rd St. Barring an unforeseen happening, the city will finally, after what will be nearly 90 years, get part of a Second Ave. Subway later in the decade. For more, check out this brief release from the MTA.

Photo of the TBM awaiting launch by Benjamin Kabak.

February 6, 2011 41 comments

Service Advisories

Changes for the weekend, and more for Astoria

by Benjamin Kabak February 5, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 5, 2011

A glimpse underneath the elevated tracks in Astoria. Repair work will change service patterns along the N and Q. (Photo by flickr user Marcin Wichary)

For residents of Astoria, the MTA dropped a Friday surprise. For a series of weekends through 2011, rail replacement and structural work on the elevated tracks in Queens will force service changes on the N and Q. Here’s the announcement:

MTA NYC Transit announces two major projects slated for Astoria in 2011 that will affect several weekend and some weekday schedules during off-peak hours. The first project is track panel installation at 36th Avenue. This work is scheduled for the following weekends: February 12-13, 19-20, 26-27, March 5-6, 12-13, August 13-14, 20-21, 27-28, September 3-4, 10-11, 17-18 and 24-25. On these weekends, the Manhattan-bound N train will operate as an express from Astoria Boulevard to Queensboro Plaza bypassing 30th Avenue, Broadway, 36th Avenue and 39th Avenue from 4 a.m. Saturday to 10 p.m. Sunday. The work entails the replacement of thirty-nine-foot sections of elevated track including ties, running rails, third rail and walkways – all part of NYCT’s In-house Capital Construction Program.

Work will also go on during the week on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. from February 2 to March 18. On those weekdays, Manhattan-bound N trains will run express from Astoria Boulevard to Queensboro Plaza and Q trains will terminate at 57th Street-7th Avenue. Manhattan-bound customers should plan for additional travel time as these service changes may add up to 15 minutes to their trip. Customers at the bypassed stations may backride to Astoria Boulevard for Manhattan-bound service or consider taking the R at Steinway or 36th Streets, the F at 21st Street-Queensbridge or walking to Queensboro Plaza.

The second project is structure painting from 40th Avenue to the 60th Street Tunnel portal west of 21st Street which is planned for some weekends in May, June, July and one weekend in October to be announced at a later date. The work will run through the entire weekend from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday.

Finally, during one minor project, on the weekend of March 19-21, there is no N service between Queensboro Plaza and Times Square. Customers must use the 7 line for service into and out of Manhattan. This is due to track maintenance work at 57th Street and in the 60th Street tube.

Of course, politicians are already bemoaning the changes. A few have claimed that recent snow efforts warrant shuttle service when these changes go into effect, and others seem to blame the high fares for the need to perform structural work on aging infrastructure. Such are the way of things.

Anyway, the regular service advisories are below. These come to me from New York City Transit and are subject to change without notice. Please check the signs at your local station and listen to on-board announcements. Subway Weekender has the map.

From 11 p.m. Friday, February 4 to 5 a.m. Monday, February 7, uptown 1 trains skip 50th Street, 59th Street-Columbus Circle and 66th Street due to switch renewal north of Times Square. Customers traveling to these stations may take the 1 or 2 train to 72nd Street and transfer to a downtown 1. Customers at these stations traveling uptown may take a downtown 1 or 2 train to Times Square-42nd Street and transfer to an uptown 1 or 2.

During the weekend overnight hours from 11 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. (5 a.m. on Monday), 2 trains skip 50th Street, 59th Street-Columbus Circle and 66th Street due to switch renewal north of Times Square. Customers traveling to these stations may take the 1 or 2 train to 72nd Street and transfer to a downtown 1. Customers at these stations traveling uptown may take a downtown 1 or 2 train to Times Square-42nd Street and transfer to an uptown 1 or 2.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 5 to 5 a.m. Monday, February 7, Manhattan-bound 2 trains skip Eastern Parkway, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen Street due to track work at Grand Army Plaza. Customers traveling to these stations may take a Manhattan-bound 2 to Atlantic Avenue and transfer to a Brooklyn-bound 2.

From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, February 5 and Sunday, February 6, Manhattan-bound 3 trains skip Eastern Parkway, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen Street due to track work at Grand Army Plaza.

During the weekend overnight hours, (12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m.), uptown 4 trains skip Canal, Spring, Bleecker Streets and Astor Place due to work on the Broadway/Lafayette-to-Bleecker Street transfer connection.

During the weekend overnight hours (12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m.), Manhattan-bound 4 trains skip Eastern Parkway, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen Street due to track work at Grand Army Plaza.

From 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday, February 5 and from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Sunday, February 6, 5 trains run every 20 minutes between Dyre Avenue and Bowling Green due to work on the Broadway/Lafayette-to-Bleecker Street transfer connection.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday. February 5 to 5 a.m. Monday, February 7, uptown 6 trains skip Canal , Spring, Bleecker Streets and Astor Place due to work on the Broadway/Lafayette-to-Bleecker Street transfer connection.

From 11 p.m. Friday, February 4 to 5 a.m. Monday, February 7, D trains run local on the R line between DeKalb Avenue and 59th Street in Brooklyn due to track work (concrete pour) south of DeKalb Avenue.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, February 5 to 5 a.m. Monday, February 7, E trains run on the F line between Roosevelt Avenue and West 4th Street due to work on the 5th Avenue Interlocking Signal System. The platforms at 5th Avenue-53rd Street, Lexington Avenue-53rd Street and 23rd Street-Ely Avenue are closed. Customers may take the R, G or shuttle bus. Free shuttle buses connect Court Square (G)/23rd Street-Ely Avenue (E), Queens Plaza (R) and the 21st Street-Queensbridge (F) stations.

From 11 p.m. Friday, February 4 to 5 a.m. Monday, February 7, N trains run local on the R line between DeKalb Avenue and 59th Street in Brooklyn due to track work (concrete pour) south of DeKalb Avenue.

February 5, 2011 8 comments

Manhattan

Notes from the L train: Avenues A and C

by Benjamin Kabak February 4, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 4, 2011

An Ave. A entrance to the L's 1st Ave. stop would be a boon for Alphabet City.

As subway expansion plans and a city-subsidized ferry service have made headlines lately, the L train has come under consideration from some of my readers. I recently did some sleuthing on the potential for expansion within Manhattan and can now answer the question of why. Why doesn’t the L stop at Ave. C? Why is there no Ave. A entrance?

The 14th St. route into Williamsburg and beyond has seen tremendous growth over the last 15 years, but its limitations, especially in Manhattan, are obvious. It stops every two avenues until First Ave. and then not again until Bedford Ave., leaving the eastern part of the island without easy subway access. From a planning perspective, an entrance at Ave. A would alleviate pressure at First Ave. and bring the subway one very long avenue block closer to Alphabet City. At stop at Ave. C would be even better.

I had a chance to query Transit on these concerns this week and wanted to share the results. At Ave. C, as many expected, the engineering demands and issues with the city’s water table make a stop there too difficult to maintain. In an email, a Transit spokesman said he consulted with the operations planning team, and they explained the issues. “After the L train leaves 1st Ave., it begins to descend and the slope is too great to place a station (and reliably stop trains),” he said. “Excavating the station and smoothing out the tunnel would be extraordinarily challenging because the ground at that particular location is all filled in swamp. We would likely have to close the L completely for years during construction.”

The entrance at Ave. A however has suffered from another fate entirely. Transit tells me this is both a feasible and beneficial idea. In fact, it has been “conceptually sketched out” but it has “never made the capital program.” I don’t have any further explanation as to why it has been omitted from expansion plans, but I can guess that it’s not been a long-term priority. Up until quite recently, population growth in that area and L train ridership would not have warranted an entrance at Ave. A.

As they say, knowing is half the battle, and now we know. Of course, armed with this knowledge, community groups in the East Village, Alphabet City and Stuyvesant Town should began agitating for a concrete commitment to build out the entrance at Ave. A. It’s a project worth pitching for the five-year capital plan that starts in 2015, and it’s one that could be realized by the end of the decade.

February 4, 2011 19 comments

7 Line Extension Asides

City tabs Parsons Brinckerhoff to study 7 extension to NJ

by Benjamin Kabak February 4, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 4, 2011

The Bloomberg Administration has asked Parsons Brinckerhoff to conduct an engineering and cost study as it pushes forward with a plan to explore extending the 7 line to Secaucus, the Daily News reported this morning. The engineering firm will conduct a study that explores how many people would use a subway to New Jersey and how much a potential extension might cost. Parsons Brinckerhoff earned the no-bid $250,000 contract due to its previous work on the ARC Tunnel, the current 7 extension and the Secaucus Junction train station, and its report is due in three months.

Still, even as the city pushes forward with this plan Bloomberg first floated in November, it is facing a certain level of skepticism from its potential partners. As a source said to the News, “City Hall really does want to explore it. “They have an incredibly reluctant MTA partner, and an incredibly wary New Jersey state government. Jay Walder doesn’t have enough money to finish what they’re already doing.”

The city hopes that PB will come back with a price tag in the $5 billion range. At that point, it will begin to pressure the MTA and New Jersey to sign on for this ambitious expansion of the subway system across the Hudson River and state borders. I’d rather see the money go toward furthering the Second Ave. Subway, but we can’t ignore the cross-Hudson congestion forever.

February 4, 2011 38 comments

MTA Absurdity

Revisiting the reaction to the glass doors

by Benjamin Kabak February 4, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 4, 2011

Platform screen doors aren't as crazy an idea as politicians and newspaper columnists think.

When the Daily News got wind of the MTA’s Request for Information concerning the possibility of installing glass doors on subway platforms, it seemed like a harmless news story. The authority wasn’t planning on committing resources to the project any time soon, and the RFI, generally the first stage in a long procurement process, made it clear that the MTA wanted any potential contractor to install the doors at as little cost as possible to the authority. The reaction though has been stupefyingly loud.

The first person to sound off on the idea was State Senator Diane Savino, and she was unamused. Noting that only .00005 percent of subway riders wind up on the tracks, she criticized the MTA for even thinking about it. Transportation Nation excerpted her statement:

“Much to my surprise the MTA found the notion intriguing. To even contemplate this nonsense is self-evidently a waste of time, effort, energy and yes – money; money the MTA does not have. The cost to install the barriers would be astronomical. The cost to maintain the doors in good operating condition would be even higher,” Savino said.

“Last year eight express bus and eight local bus routes where eliminated or reduced from my district along with the M train downtown extension into Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights, restoration of those routes should be the first discussion instead of spending additional monies on some harebrained notion like this,”

How dare the MTA try to solicit ideas for better service! It’s as though Savino isn’t trying. She clearly didn’t read the Request for Information because had she done so, she would have seen the authority’s intent to spend few dollars on this program.

Savino also doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the MTA’s operating budget and capital budget. The two are funded separately, and money from one cannot be easily shifted from the other. Still, she harps on last year’s operating cuts. “Life is precious and track fires are dangerous,” she said, “but the risks of both are far too minuscule to justify all the expense and effort — especially when most South Brooklynites and Islanders have had their modes of commuting eliminated under auspices of fiscal restraint.”

Of course, what Savino fails to mention is her own role in the cuts. She is leading a splinter group of Senate Democrats who support repealing the payroll tax, and she has consistently voted against congestion pricing measures. She did vote for the measure that robbed $143 million of allegedly dedicated funds from the MTA before saying that she never bothered to read the bill. She has also supported an unnecessary and costly no-layoffs bill. In other words, if the easy political points are there for the grabbing, she’s happy to take them.

But Savino isn’t the only one sounding off. The Daily News’ own editorial page yesterday featured two columns on it, and neither of them were written to sound as though the authors had read the paper’s own news coverage. First, we have an unsigned editorial calling the MTA “crazy” for even considering an “overblown plan” to build doors on the platform. I wonder how many times the Daily News has called someone crazy for asking for information or conducting a due diligence examination.

The editorial, clearly written at the urging of Savino, hits upon the same points she used in her letter to MTA Chair and CEO Jay Walder and even used most of the same language:

Some brainiacs have come up with the idea of erecting barriers along the edges of subway platforms to keep people from falling over. Said barriers would be equipped with sliding portals that would open and close in unison with subway doors,

Stop laughing. We’re not kidding. No, sir. We know this is no joke because the Metropolitan Transportation Authority found the notion intriguing enough to ask other brainiacs to submit even better proposals for adding a touch of Disney World to New York’s underground lair.

Merely to contemplate this nonsense is self-evidently a waste of time and money. The cost to install the barriers would be astronomical. The cost to maintain the doors in good operating condition would be even higher.

The Daily News editorial staff, experts in construction and maintenance costs of underground technological projects has deemed just thinking about it a “self-evident” waste of time and money. If they’re just going to serve as Diane Savino’s uncritical lapdogs, maybe we should appoint them to the MTA Board to see how they run things.

Finally, Joanna Molloy, who has an opinion about everything but seems to know little, sounds off on the project. While noting that CEMUSA paid $1.4 billion to install thousands of bus shelters throughout the city, she scoffs at the idea that the MTA could get the doors built for little or no cost seemingly without offering a reason why. But her crowning moment comes in the condemnation of the plan itself. She doesn’t want it because it’s not gritty enough for her. The logic is dumbfounding.

Sure, you can argue that the sleek, modern doors, which have worked so beautifully along the AirTrain, will save a few dozen lives – and spare the city from some pricey lawsuits. But we’re New Yorkers – we’re tough, and we like grunge and noise. It may be fine for San Francisco, where BART travelers politely form perpendicular lines at the exact spot at which they know the train door will stop. It’s just not us.

New Yorkers have true grit, and nothing gives grittier grit than the subway. We like to brag about the horrors we’ve seen down there. I once saw a 14-inch-long rat munch the last dregs of a hot dog on the tracks of Union Square station. Top that.

Got that? We don’t want clean subway systems that aren’t sweltering saunas in the subway because we’re New Yorkers and we like living and commuting in our own filth. Let’s not try to improve the system or enjoy pleasant commutes because then we wouldn’t be tough. We, like Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers’ latest, have true grit. On what planet does Joanna Molloy live anyway?

Now, I don’t know what the future will hold for the MTA’s idea to install doors on some or all of its platforms. In an early incarnation, the new Second Ave. Subway stops were to have these doors, but the authority won’t release SAS station specs for a little while yet. Maybe the MTA can find a contractor like CEMUSA willing to build the doors in exchange for the ad space, and maybe not. Maybe the Request for Information will lead to some results, and maybe the MTA will find that it’s not a feasible project for the New York City subway system.

No matter the outcome, the discourse around it is terrible. The MTA gets ridiculed for engaging in a no-cost effort to find out how to improve the system from politicians who clearly aren’t attuned to the mechanisms that fund the agency and from newspaper editorials that can’t see beyond the current filthy state of our system. This reaction creates a loop in which the MTA gains no public support or trust even as it’s trying to move the system forward, and now, we know why politicians get away with taking dedicated funds out of the MTA’s coffers.

Ultimately, this whole vicious cycle is why we don’t have nice things underground. A no-cost request for basic information to improve conditions underground just should not be met with such ignorant vehemence until dollar figures are attached to a specific proposal. Until the coverage improves and politicians understand what’s happening in transit globally and with the MTA locally, the loop will just keep circling back on itself forever.

February 4, 2011 55 comments

Buses

End of the DesignLine for new buses

by Benjamin Kabak February 3, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 3, 2011

Once upon a time, the glory days of late 2007, the MTA had high hopes for a battery-powered bus with a turbine engine from DesignLine. The authority ran a test bus throughout the fall and ordered a small series of five in 2009 for a pilot. At the time, these vehicles were in the running to be the bus of the future, and in late 2009, the public voiced its approval. Alas, it is not to be.

For the past few weeks, I’d heard rumblings that the DesignLine bus pilot had failed, and Transit today confirmed the news. They summed it up in a statement:

“Based on testing that was conducted on DesignLine buses from August 2009 through December 2010 it became clear that the 30KW turbine engine did not provide enough power to operate in regular passenger service in a multitude of conditions. A larger 65KW turbine was fitted on a test bus but after extensive testing in service operation, it proved to lack an acceptable level of reliability for NYCT passenger service. We will return the five buses that were in Evaluation Service and all monies that were given to DesignLine will be refunded to NYC Transit.”

So much for that.

February 3, 2011 20 comments

MetroCard

Slowly leaving the MetroCard behind

by Benjamin Kabak February 3, 2011

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 3, 2011

A swipeless, credit card-based fare payment system is in our subway-riding future.

Now that the MTA is well on its way toward building out an in-house real-time bus tracking system, the authority’s fare payment technology will be the next to see an upgrade. On and off for four years, the authority has run various contact-less fare payment pilot programs, and after the most recent one, Chair and CEO Jay Walder vowed to move forward with a replacement for the MetroCard.

“The history of some of the technology pieces is that we did a pilot to get to the next pilot and then we did the next pilot to get to the pilot after that,” he said to me in November. “The point of the pilot ending is that we are concentrating on moving out into the production phase of getting this done, and I think you will see contracts early-to-mid next year that will be moving this forward for the subway and bus system.”

That future is nigh. As Digital Transactions reported this week, the MTA will soon begin issuing the requisite documents to solicit proposals for the next-generation fare payment technology. The industry site has more:

MTA officials tell Digital Transactions News that they plan to publish a so-called Concept of Operations, a document outlining the agency’s broad plans that would help vendors develop formal proposals. That document is expected to be available for review soon, though the agency hasn’t given an exact date.

“Once we finish our industry-outreach activities, we will begin the process of turning that into technical requirements and move into high-level system design, and then detailed system design,” an MTA spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News by e-mail. “We expect to issue an RFP [request for proposals] this year to enable us to identify a systems integrator. One of their tasks will be to work with us to do the detailed design.”

The program will be centered on using general-purpose, contactless credit, debit, and prepaid cards and other media based on the ISO 1443 contactless technology standard. That would include contactless fobs that already come with some payment cards, and stickers that attach to cell phones.

Digitial Transactions notes that while the contours of the payment system is in place, the details remain unknown. The cost, for instance, should be steep, and as the MetroCard system cost $750 million to install in the mid-1990s, overhauling turnstiles and the like will require an outlay of capital.

Timing too is a concern. It took the MTA 12 years to move from a consulting project to actual implementation of the MetroCard when it first tried to replace tokens. The time-to-live for this project, though, should be considerably shorter as the MTA has already conducted the pilots for this project. Widespread implementation and scalability are the primary drivers here. The death clock for the MetroCard moves another second toward midnight.

February 3, 2011 20 comments

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