View from Underground

Photo of the Day: A Rider Rebellion on the A train

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 7, 2011

Brodie Enoch, the leader of Transportation Alternative's Rider Rebellion, urges the city's subway riders to stand up to Albany. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

Over the past few months, as subway fares have gone up and service down, Transportation Alternatives has tried to stir up a Rider Rebellion. They’ve garnered press attention and have a website devoted to the cause as they try to pressure Albany to fund transit in New York. Yesterday, they took to the tracks.

For the first time, TA’s rebellion headed underground as activists staged a flash rally. At 10:15 a.m., the group boarded an A train at Columbus Circle and rode to 125th St. Along the way, they asked riders to support the cause and explained how Albany’s actions in stealing $143 million from transit riders in 2009 led to 2010’s service cuts and fare hikes. With a trumpeter playing the famous “Take the A Train” in tow, TA’s operatives found an audience receptive to their message (and free water bottles).

I journeyed on that A train with the group yesterday and snapped some photos of the event. DNA Info’s Olivia Scheck produced a story and video on the rally as well. The organizers were thrilled with their first-time results, but they have a long way to go to convince New Yorkers that their elected officials must be held responsible for the MTA’s precarious financial state. It is a message that must be heard.

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AsidesSecond Avenue Subway

UES Italian joint felled by Second Ave. Subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 7, 2011

Tony’s Di Napoli, a popular family-style Italian restaurant on Second Ave., closed earlier this week to make way for the Second Ave. Subway. As The Real Deal reported, the restaurant at 83rd St. and Second Ave. is the future home of the southern exit for the Second Ave. Subway’s 86th St. stop, and as work continues underground, the MTA had to take possession of the restaurant’s long-time home. “This place has been slated as a stop for the station for many years,” Bruce Dimpflmaier, the restuarant’s GM, said. “We tried to fight and keep it from happening, but we knew it was an inevitable situation.”

The restaurant’s owners say they will seek out another Upper East Side location, and the Times Square outpost remains open and perennially crowded. Reaction to the loss of this restaurant seems decidedly mixed. Billed as a typical family-style red sauce joint good for crowds, Zagat gives the remaining location a 20 in the food department. Yelpers were less kind to the Upper East Side location as it earned just three stars.

Still, there are critics in every crowd. As one Yelper said, “Yup, another victim of the 2nd Avenue Subway bullsh$t.” A man on the street decried the closure to DNAinfo and called the Second Ave. Subway construction a “boondoggle.” For some, a reliable if replaceable Italian restaurant is more important than transit progress, and we see once again that when it comes to forward albeit slow progress, you can’t please all of New Yorkers all of the time.

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MetroCard

Thinking Out Loud: Eliminating pay-per-ride fares

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 7, 2011

Sometime in the eventual future, the MTA will do away with MetroCards and move toward a tap-and-go fare payment system. When the familiar pieces of plastic with their particularly sensitive magnetic stripes go the way of the dodo, the authority will have a chance to re-imagine how we pay for our subway rides. Do we need a pay-per-ride option? How should unlimited fare cards work in this brave new word of contactless payment?

A few months ago, SAS reader Corey emailed me a question and a proposal concerning the fare structure. He asked about eliminating the pay-per-ride fare entirely and all forms of transfer. He proposed a three-tiered fare structure: Riders could pay either $5 for one day of unlimited use, $25 for seven days of unlimited use or $100 for four weeks of unlimited use. “The rationale here,” he wrote to me, “is that if you use transit to get somewhere, you’re highly likely to use it to get back.”

As long as the tap-and-go system uses the standard block-and-reconcile billing method that many e-commerce sites use, he believes it can be easy to program a flexible system that charges per use. Under this scheme, on the fifth day of use in a seven-day period, the charge would become a weekly unlimited one good for seven days from the first use, and the same would apply after the fourth weekly charge. Effectively, the user would buy discounted cards retroactively.

Corey’s reasoning, from a billing perspective is one of simplicity. This system, he writes, “eliminates complicated transfer wrangling and helps bridge the gap between the old MetroCard system and the new tap-and-go.” In essence, it’s a transition approach to billing that allows users flexibility. They should also be able to opt-in for bulk purchases from the start, but if they don’t choose to do so, they won’t get overcharged on the back end.

Corey ends his email with a question: “Can you see any flaws in this plan?” And that’s where I’m picking up his thread. I’ll leave the question open to debate, but first some thoughts.

I’m uncomfortable with doing away with pay-per-ride options entirely because it tends to discourage transit use. While many people do intend to make the return trip, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the return trip is via automobile. Sometimes, in the case of trips to travel hubs, the return ride isn’t until after a vacation or business trip.

With an automatic payment of $5 from the get-go, users are encouraged to use as much transit as possible, but sometimes, they just don’t have a choice. The $5 rate seems high enough as an initial starting point to discourage those who need to make a quick trip infrequently even as it encourages others to make as many trips as possible frequently.

Beyond that limiting factor, though, this plan is certainly one that could be put in place fairly easily, and it shouldn’t increase most people’s transportation costs. The daily card would raise the price of a back-and-forth trip to $2.50 per entry, but the weekly option is cheaper than the current $29 card available for sale. Charging $100 for four weeks is a slight increase over the current $104 30-day card, but when fares go up in 2013, we’ll likely reach that point anyway.

When the MTA introduces a tap-and-go system, they should be able to tout an equally impressive reduction of fare collection costs. Off-the-cuff calculations reveal that fare-collection savings off as little as three cents per fare dollar will save the MTA around $50 million a year. Considering the authority’s precarious financial state, they won’t — and shouldn’t — pass those savings onto customers, but a more streamlined fare system has its benefits.

To create a better system, we must build one that encourages mass transit without overcharging for it or overburdening those who can’t pay as much but rely on the system for vital transportation needs. Corey’s proposal is certainly easier to understand than today’s menu of discounts and fare options. But is it the best we can do?

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AsidesService Advisories

MTA institutes Plan 4 snow response; weekend work canceled

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

After its response to late December’s surprise blizzard drew criticism, the MTA has already initiated its Plan 4 snow response. The subways will follow the MTA’s cold weather service patterns with B train service ending at around 8 p.m. and the M to Forest Hills at 11 p.m. With five or six inches of snow on the way, Transit will be prepared for the snow this time around. “We want to make sure we want to do this one right,” Tom Prendergast, head of New York City Transit, said this afternoon.

To prepare for the snow, which they expect to begin in earnest at around 4 a.m., the MTA will store unused trains underground tonight. Thus, express service may not run on many lines. Furthermore, the MTA has readied its fleet of de-icers, track sweepers and snow throwers, and workers will be retained for 12-hour shifts. The authority has also reestablished a central command center that will help the agency keep a close eye on areas in the field where snow hinders transit operations. “That lack of info hurt us and inhibited us…from responding to high winds and drifting snow,” Prendergast said of last month’s blizzard.

Meanwhile, as buses will be chained this evening, the authority has canceled all weekend work as well. This includes a one-week postponement of the Culver Viaduct rehab. With fewer inches of snow in the forecast, Transit is out to prove that it learned something from last week’s lesson. They say they’re prepared for a winter storm, and tonight should bring them the season’s next test.

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AsidesPublic Transit Policy

House now misappropriate transit funding too

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

Just in case you worried that New York is alone when it comes to legislatures stealing money that should be dedicated to transit, think again. As Transportation Nation dismayingly reports today, the 112th Congress has adopted rules for the House that allow for transportation funds to be used for non-transportation purposes. A rule shielding those funds from such a misappropriation had been in place since 1998, and it seems clear that the G.O.P.-led House will try to cut transit and infrastructure spending over the next two years.

Local politicians and transit agencies aren’t happy. Earlier this week, Jay Walder penned a letter to Congressman Anthony Weiner. In it, he urged the New York State Democrat to speak out against this parliamentary maneuvering. “The proposed revision,” the MTA CEO and Chair said, “would allow highway user fees to be applied to other types of investments, reducing Congress’ ability to provide predictable levels of funding for transportation projects.” A significant portion of the MTA’s capital money comes from the federal government, and at a time when the agency must fill a $10 billion gap in its current five-year spending plan, this move could not come at a worse time.

Transit advocates expert this move to reduce federal infrastructure spending by approximately $7-$8 billion. For more on the ramifications of this decision, check out coverage on The Transport Politic.

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AsidesBrooklyn

For Brooklyn F riders, all’s well that ends a week later

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

After an intense debate over some Brooklynites’ shock at the looming closure of stations along the F line, the weather has intervened to give the Culver Viaduct rehab a week-long reprieve. As WNYC’s Jim O’Grady reported late yesterday, Transit has decided to postpone the work by a week due to the threat of up to six inches of snow this weekend. Thus, the work on the Culver Viaduct that requires Manhattan-bound trains to bypass Forth Hamilton Parkway, 15th St. and Smith-9th Sts. won’t commence until January 17, and neighbors irate over the late notice have another week to plan.

Meanwhile, O’Grady quizzed Transit officials on the decision to wait until less than a week before work was to begin to hang up signs announcing the platform closures. “We have found that if you put it up too early, people lose sight of it,” agency spokesman Charles Seaton said. “It’s better to keep it fresh in people’s minds.” Seaton did say that signs will go up this weekend and that the authority will make “public announcements in the system.”

Yet, I still believe warnings should have gone up in late December. The Viaduct rehab, talked about since 2007, will inconvenience a lot of F and G train riders throughout 2011. Either way, after the back-and-forth amongst commenters in my earlier post, on FiPS yesterday and on Gothamist, I had to laugh when this seven-day postponement was announced last night.

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Subway Security

In D.C., a different debate over bag searches

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 6, 2011

Random bag searches have been the way of life underground since 2005. (Photo by flickr user Runs With Scissors)

For New Yorkers, random subway bag searches have been a way of life for six years. Now and then, straphangers see a trio of NYPD officers set up shop at an entrance, usually at rush hour when most people would rather just got home. Right now, ten years after 9/11 and what seems like a lifetime since Transit and the police started its own bag searches, Washington’s WMATA is launching its own bag searches, and the riders are not happy.

In many regards, the stories coming out of the District of Columbia mirror those from New York in 2005, but Metro passengers in DC are unhappier than straphangers here ever were. Dr. Gridlock of The Washington Post offers up his take on the bag searches in DC. While New Yorkers hate the MTA, folks in DC loathe the WMATA and have not take kindly to the latest intrusion into their privacy. He criticizes the WMATA board for falling to explore this change in policy, and the rhetoric is strong. It is, he says, “one more indignity” customers who have “taken so much from the transit authority” must withstand.

The WMATA officials of course defended the policy in December on grounds that, hey, New York is doing it. “While there is no specific or credible threat to the system at this time, this inspection program is part of our practice of varying our security posture and adds another type of visible protection on our system,” Richard Sarles, Metro’s interim GM, said.

“[Police Chief Michael] Taborn has ensured that this program will minimize inconvenience to riders. The program is based on similar successful law enforcement programs used routinely on transit systems in the New York, New Jersey and Boston areas. Inspections will be brief and are typically non-intrusive, as police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using ionization technology, as well as K-9 units trained to detect explosive material. Carry on items will generally not be opened and physically inspected, unless the equipment indicates a need for further inspection.”

As with in New York, those who refuse inspection are not permitted entrance into the system, and the riders absolutely hate it. “We’re not Israel, nor should we be. The searches are ineffective,” one said at a recent public forum.

These DC responses remind me of a time nearly six years ago when the MTA implemented a similar procedure. In the wake of the July train bombings in Europe in 2005, the MTA and other area transit authorities began random bag inspections throughout the region. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly felt that “time was right” to begin this security initiative, and taking to the airwaves, Mayor Bloomberg tried to assuage public fears of police misconduct. “I hope that we have established the right balance here, providing the kind of security we need while not being too intrusive and not violating their rights,” he said. “The way we’ve done this is: You can walk away if you don’t want your bag searched; you just can’t get on the subway. So we do it outside the turnstile. And there’s no profiling.”

Calling protecting our subways a “vital national interest,” The Times endorsed the practice, and after the first week, most watching the program cited “an absence of drama.” Still, civil liberties groups were not too happy with the searches, and the NYCLU filed suit in November.

The following year, a three-judge panel in the Second Circuit upheld the constitutionality of the searches. “In light of the thwarted plots to bomb New York City’s subway system, its continued desirability as a target, and the recent bombings of public transportation systems in Madrid, Moscow and London, the risk to public safety is substantial and real,” determined the judges.

Today, the bag searches have become background noise in the subways. At first, cops were inspecting every fifth passenger to enter the system, but these days, it appears far more random than that. I constantly see the police set up shop at West 4th St., but even with a heavy backpack in tow, I’ve never once had to stop for a bag search. Despite Bloomberg’s promises in 2005, I can’t help but think that I don’t look the part enough for the NYPD.

As D.C. grapples with a similar project — a legal challenge seems both brewing and bound to fail — maybe it’s time to reevaluate our city’s own program. Has it made the subways safer? Does it still? The MTA still faces fears of photography at depots where security staffing had to be reduced, and anti-terrorist experts admit that our rail systems remain insecure. There’s no good one way to keep terrorists at bay, and a wide array of local responses seem to be warranted to make sure we’re as safe as possible.

We seem to be stuck with the bag search hand we’ve been dealt. It — and the threat of terrorism — isn’t going away any time soon, and DC’s Metro riders will soon, for better or worse, learn the same lesson. While New Yorkers didn’t put up much of a fight or offer public outcry, though, Washingtonians won’t take their bag searches lying down.

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Abandoned Stations

Video of the Day: Undercity explorations

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 5, 2011

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

The last few months have been kind to underground explorers who poke around in areas off limits to the city’s law-abiding citizens. After the Underbelly Project drew headlines and arrests, urban exploration has become the next great Internet fetish.

This past week, The Times and NPR profiled Steve Duncan of Undercity who, along with Andrew Wonder and Erling Kagge, took some reporters to a few of the city’s more hard-to-reach spots. Among those were, of course, some areas of the subway. In the video above, the explorers go underground with a camera, and the 30-minute clip is stunning. The first part has them walking the tracks late at night to reach the old abandoned City Hall stop, and the video footage will leave your jaw on the floor.

Of course, what the three explorers and the reporters did is illegal. So do not try that on your end. Cops will be watching these tunnels. For more, check out the articles in The Times and on NPR.org.

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MTA Economics

Nassau County on the hook for more MTA funds

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 5, 2011

As Nassau County and the MTA drag out their dispute over funding for Long Island Bus, a state court decided this week that the Long Island count must pay the MTA $20 million for a loan the county took out 15 years ago. Newsday has the details on this latest bit of financial chicanery:

Already struggling to meet its financial obligations to the MTA, Nassau County may have to pay the transit agency an additional $20 million following a state court’s decision in a lawsuit stemming from a financial deal made between the two sides 15 years ago.

According to the suit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority lent “the cash-strapped county” $51 million in 1996 in a “2-for-1” agreement in which Nassau agreed to pay back twice that sum in funds for MTA capital projects in Nassau.

Nassau issued bonds to raise the full $102 million and made good on $89 million of the capital funding it had committed to the MTA. But, according to the suit, in 2001 the county filed a lawsuit looking to get out of the agreement, arguing that the MTA had overstepped its authority in making the deal.

The court is now requiring the county to fork over $13.6 million to cover the difference in payments as well as another $7.3 million in interest, legal fees and other capital improvements. County officials, of course, are none too pleased. “We are very disappointed in the ruling and have directed staff to file a notice of appeal,” Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said.

The MTA, meanwhile, with support from Newsday’s editorial staff, is starting to take an agressive approach toward Nassau County’s dismissive attitude toward its MTA funding obligations. “This ruling makes it clear that Nassau County’s obligations to the MTA are not optional and shouldn’t be treated that way,” agency spokesman Jeremy Soffin said. If only the authority would say the same to Albany.

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ARC Tunnel

At Penn Station, the ghost of ARC lives on

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on January 5, 2011

Penn Station simply cannot handle an increase in train capacity.

It’s been over two months since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pulled the plug on the ARC Tunnel project, and the fallout from his decision is still raining down upon the region. While the 7 line extension to Secaucus made headlines in mid-November, all has been quite on the cross-Hudson front. Still, the problems ARC was designed to address and the problems that plagued the ARC project live on.

Two stories — one grander than the other — kept the ARC tunnel in the news this week. First, The Post’s editorial board used the MTA Inspector General’s report on the MTA’s construction cost overruns as proof that canceling ARC was the right idea. Their logic is spurious at best.

“You can’t blame New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he feels some satisfaction over news out of the MTA,” Alexander Hamilton’s former paper said. “A new report by Inspector General Barry Kluger found that the transit agency’s major development projects — the Second Avenue subway, the LIRR link and the Fulton Transit Center — are five years late and $2 billion over budget. But they’re all too far along for MTA Chairman Jay Walder to kill them. Which is precisely what Christie did to the Hudson River commuter tunnel, before it slipped into the overrun abyss.”

The Post claims that the problems plaguing the MTA — “lack of oversight and bureaucratic infighting” — are the same as those that would have descended on ARC, and because of those concerns, Christie was right to cancel the project. To me, it would have made far more sense for Christie to address those two concerns and figure out a way to bring the project under budget before killing it. He chose not to tackle those problems, and the way he made his decision should not be applauded.

Meanwhile, the problems ARC was designed to address are alive and kicking. Penn Station has not turned into a panacea of through trains, and the crowded rail hub is facing capacity concerns. As part of an ongoing series detailing concerns about our region’s aging transportation infrastructure, Andrew Grossman of the Wall Street Journal went in depth into the Penn Station problems. He writes:

NJ Transit, LIRR and Amtrak must get 170 trains loaded on 21 platforms in four hours, moving more than 120,000 commuters and long-haul travelers out of Manhattan. It is the nation’s busiest station. If all goes according to plan, a train opens its doors on a platform every 60 to 90 seconds, picking up or dropping off about 900 passengers—the equivalent of two full Boeing 747s.

In 2010, 6% of peak-period NJ Transit trains were late through November, with delays more common on most of the lines that run in and out of Penn. Sometimes the failures are catastrophic and perhaps unavoidable, as following the late-December snowstorm that delayed scores of trains for days. But other delays—malfunctioning signals, overhead wires knocked down by trees that the railroad can’t afford to trim—can be chalked up to factors like human error, poor planning or a lack of funding.

Penn Station is one of many choke points in the aging transit system moving people around metro New York. In an era defined by states’ austerity and tapped-out transit authorities, much of the fundamental infrastructure is outdated and overcrowded. And there’s little prospect of it getting much better without politically unpalatable steps being taken, such as higher fares and tolls or a major reallocation of taxpayer dollars.

All of the trains arriving and departing Penn Station, which opened a century ago, come from two tracks toward New Jersey and four tracks toward Long Island. All must arrive on one of the 21 tracks, but many trains can’t fit on some tracks with shorter platforms. By contrast, Grand Central has 46 tracks—and far fewer delays.

A late Amtrak train impacts a New Jersey Transit train which impacts a Long Island Rail Road train which impacts an Amtrak train. It is a problem that many had hoped ARC would solve and now, as Grossman notes, transportation planners are “scrambling” to find better solutions. New Jersey Transit is at the mercy of Amtrak, but the MTA is trying anything it can find to improve the situation.

The authority, says Grossman, “is investigating whether it can run trains through Penn and into New Jersey, shaving precious minutes off the amount of time each spends on a platform, freeing up some capacity. It’s also looking at running some Metro-North trains into Penn once a project to provide LIRR access into Grand Central Terminal is finished.”

Eventually, something is going to have to give. New Jersey and New York will have to figure out a way to work together to address the region’s cross-Hudson rail capacity concerns. The two states will have to work hard to keep costs on the ARC successor project to a reasonable level and will have to battle overruns. The economic impact of planning and building nothing is too severe for us to wait much longer.

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