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Second Ave. Sagas

News and Views on New York City Transportation

MTA

Some thoughts on the direction of the MTA

by Benjamin Kabak December 3, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 3, 2010

Jay Walder is the center of attention during an April ribbon-cutting ceremony. (Benjamin Kabak/Second Ave. Sagas)

Now that I’ve had an opportunity to run my complete interview with MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder, I wanted to wrap up the series with my thoughts on the leadership at the MTA. The authority, routinely under fire by straphangers, politicians and everyone in between, has faced some rocky times, and the next legislative session could, as Streetsblog’s Noah Kazis detailed today, lead to more reappropriated and stolen transit funds. It’s not been an easy few years for the MTA.

Yet, despite tough economic times, the agency is currently growing its transit network. Within the next six to eight years, we’ll see part of a new subway line open along Second Ave. We’ll see Long Island Rail Road service into and out of Grand Central. We’ll see the 7 line reach the Far West Side and the Javits Center.

Beyond the expansion of service, we’ve also seen new customer-focused initiatives. Countdown clocks now tell riders exactly how long they must wait for trains, and commutes are less stressful because of it. A better website delivers real-time information about bus locations and service outages. New York City Transit even has its own Twitter account to amuse and inform its 10,000 followers. This is an MTA that has, sometimes kicking and screaming, entered a better era.

That isn’t to say that the authority is problem-free. As funds are tight, services have been eliminated even as capital spending is steady. We lost the V and W trains earlier this year and saw countless bus lines eliminated. We wait longer for off-hours trains and suffer through dirtier platforms that are in desperate need of rehab and renovation. For all of this, we’re getting a fare hike in four weeks. To make matters worse, even the major capital projects are hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars overbudget and years behind schedule.

All of which leads to two questions: How has Jay Walder performed as the first leader to act as both Chair and CEO of the MTA? Is he the right person for the job?

By and large, Walder has worked well with what he has, and what he has is not much. Walder came back from London with the promise of a fully funded MTA and a request or even a mandate to modernize the system. Only half of that vision has come to fruition, and his tenure is very much a work in progress. He is still, for instance, amidst an effort to overhaul and discard the MetroCard.

What drives many of Walder’s recent initiatives, even as service is scaled back and fares go up, is the need to, as he puts, make every dollar count. It’s important to replace the MetroCard with something more efficient because those are easy cost savings. By improving fare collection by just a few cents on the dollar, the MTA can generate upwards of a $100 million in added revenue every year. It shouldn’t take an economic crisis to address such an easily solvable problem, but change does not come easy to the MTA’s bureaucracy.

Where Walder has fallen short has been with labor. Right now, labor relations between the MTA and its workers are at a low point. The authority begrudgingly assented to an arbitration award for the TWU that required 11 percent in raises over three years, and Walder has overseen a drastic reduction in the number of personnel staffing stations. Even as modern technology can create a safer environment than a lone agent in his or her station, the appearance of a person can be a strong deterrent.

Soon the labor battle will rear its head again as the TWU’s contract comes due after 2011. Management at the MTA is expected to take a tough stance. It is there goal to maintain the labor spending levels, and that either means far fewer employees or no raises. No matter which path the authority chooses, Walder will have to convince a reluctant union to sacrifice, and if he cannot do that, then costs will continue to climb and climb and climb. Making friends with the workers will be of paramount importance.

Today, we know Walder, as we knew his predecessor Lee Sander, as a politically responsible choice to head a transit agency. His expertise lies in running a transit system and not in operating a real estate empire. He’s learned a lot during his first 14 months on the job, and he’ll be the first to tell you that. As we near the reign of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Walder’s job could be in danger, but if Cuomo were an astute politician, he would keep Walder on. Flaws and all, he’s one of the stronger allies the MTA has right now.

December 3, 2010 18 comments
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ARC TunnelAsides

Nearly one-third of ARC money heading to roads

by Benjamin Kabak December 2, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 2, 2010

When Gov. Chris Christie canceled the ARC Tunnel over what he said were cost overrun concerns, many transit advocates believed he had an ulterior motive for canceling the project. Today, we learn that the conspiracy theories just might be true. As Bloomberg News’ Dustan McNichol reported, New Jersey will take $1.25 billion in money originally intended for the ARC Tunnel and use it on roads instead.

On the one hand, this development isn’t as outrageous as it could be. The $1.25 billion is coming from bonds issued by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, and had ARC gone forward, this bond issue would have been one of the few in which highway funds were bonded for rail projects. “Historically, only turnpike projects have been funded with turnpike tolls,” Martin Robins of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center said. “[ARC] was one of a few exceptions to the rule — by far the largest exception.”

On the other, well, investing in roads — and in particular, road expansion plans — without adding rail capacity will hinder the New York/New Jersey region. By improving and widening roads, New Jersey will be encouraging more cars to hit the roads, and as these cars head to the region’s center of commerce, congestion under the Hudson River will continue to gross worse. Sustainability and economic efficiency will take a significant hit. It’s true that the ARC Tunnel had design flaws, but spending on roads without increasing rail capacity will be disastrous for the region.

December 2, 2010 32 comments
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AsidesBuses

For Long Island Bus, a one-year reprieve?

by Benjamin Kabak December 2, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 2, 2010

As Nassau County and the MTA continue their standoff over the funding future of Long Island Bus, the authority has made a peace offering. As Newsday reports today, the MTA has offered to run Long Island Bus through 2011 as long as Nassau County works to up its funding contributions. The MTA also wants Nassau County to that it is “solely responsible for funding its bus system, that it increase its subsidy in 2011, and that it meet its obligation to fully fund LI Bus during Mangano’s current term in office.”

The funding subsides have, of course, been at the heart of this dispute. While Nassau County owns the Long Island Bus system, it contributes just $9 million to its operating costs, and the MTA has to dole out over $25 million to cover the difference. Nassau County has, reports Alfonso Castillo, volunteered to raise its subsidy by $5 million beginning in 2012, but the MTA wants the county to fulfill its terms of the deal and fully fund the system. County leaders, no longer calling for Jay Walder’s resignation, said only that they “are continuing our discussions with the MTA as well as exploring a public-private partnership.”

Ultimately, the MTA won’t cut off Long Island Bus service. It has to give 60 days’ notice if it does, and the authority is working to maintain service levels. Will Nassau County take responsibility for a bus system will a daily weekday ridership of over 100,000? They should.

December 2, 2010 0 comment
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MetroCard

Walder on the death of the MetroCard

by Benjamin Kabak December 2, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 2, 2010

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

Since taking his spot atop the MTA hierarchy, Jay Walder has overseen a push to bring 21st Century transit technology into a system that has long been resistant to modernization. It was that drive that led Gov. David Paterson to appoint Walder to the authority’s top spot, and while many headline-generating projects — the MetroCard replacement program, the countdown clocks — have been in the works for a few years, Walder has seen them move from concept to reality.

In a few years, we could be mourning the death of the MetroCard as transit agencies around the world look to move toward an international fare payment standard. For the past six months ending on Tuesday, the MTA conducted a pilot program with Mastercard’s PayPass and Visa’s payWave technologies. In the final segment of my interview with him, Walder discussed the future of fare payment technologies and the eventual end of the swipe.

Second Ave. Sagas: Improving the fare technology has been a major push of yours over the last year. Where do things stand now? People ask me all the time about improving bus loading times, getting rid of MetroCards, what the next-generation fare payments are going to look like. How soon do you see that technology coming online and what will it look like?

It may well be that the single most demonstrative benefit of a new fare collection system would be on the buses.

Jay Walder: I’m glad you raised bus loading times because it may well be that the single most demonstrative benefit of a new fare collection system would be on the buses. The loading times are horrific on buses, and it’s due, in a large extent, to the fare collection system. The difference is that a MetroCard can take several seconds to dip and an Oyster Card in London is 200 miliseconds. We’re talking about a fundamental shift if we’re able to do it.

The good news out of the pilot program that we’ve had running along the Lexington Ave. line and eight connecting bus routes and express buses is that the system has technologically proven to be satisfactory and has met the objectives that we set out to achieve. It operates off of a standard payments technological platform which I think is beneficial to us going forward. There are some wrinkles that are exactly the sort of thing you would get in a pilot process so better to be doing it in a pilot than otherwise.

The pilot will end at the end of this month, and that’s important because 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. 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. They will be done in a way that can and should work with the Port Authority and New Jersey Transit. So we can potentially break down the barrier of the Hudson River that way. Also, we’re moving forward with some tests on how we can incorporate some of this into the commuter rail environment as well so that we might think of changing our fare collection process there.

Second Ave. Sagas: Do you anticipate that it will look pretty similar to the Pay Pass system as it’s been set up for the trial?

Walder: There are two parts of it. The actual technology of how this looks will be pretty similar. It might be slightly different, but again we’re trying to stay with standard technology. We’re not trying to build something that’s a custom fit. The second part is that there are elements of what we need to do that are not the norm of what Pay Pass does and we need to find ways to be able to do that as well.

You’ve also seen, if you look at some of what we’re doing on bridges and tunnels right now, we’ve entered into a pilot program there with Visa at a number of stores across the metropolitan region that may well be a model for how we might use the retail environment to refill cards as well. We’re looking at a whole range of things that are involved in that. I think you’ll see us moving to production phase next year.

One of the things we have to work out is the degree to which we do this to a parallel, sort of a side-by-side to the MetroCard or do the degree to which we really do this and have it implemented in a wider range of places but don’t really look to turn it on until we know we can take away the MetroCard. We’re trying to figure that out right now.

Second Ave. Sagas: When will this come online? Is there a year?

Walder: I’m staying away from giving you a year for the moment because we really need to take all of the results of the pilot into account. We need to develop firm plans for the way we’re going to roll this out, and I’m a little worried about being a hostage to fortune unless I give our people time to look at that.

But the direction of travel is very clear, the benefits are very clear. It will be something that is simpler for customers and provides more flexibility in the way we utilize our fare structures. I expect a lot more flexibility in the way that you may be able to get cards, reload cards, and do anything like that, including using the Internet in much different ways in which we do right now. We’ll be using the retail environment in much better ways than we’re able to do it right now. We’ll be potentially moving much more of the payments process away from the MTA and into the payments industry which may be a beneficial thing for us to do. Finally, I think it provides a degree of service, customer service, that people will appreciate. I think anybody who uses a cross-town bus will immediately appreciate it.

This wraps up my interview with Jay Walder. In only 30 minutes, he and I discussed many topics, and hopefully, I’ll be able to sit down with him again in the near future to probe some issues that wasn’t able to cover. In case you missed it, in Part I, I looked at the MTA’s fiscal state; in Part II, we talked about labor relations and alternate revenue sources; and in Part III, I quizzed Walder on the Second Ave. Subway and various other construction plans.

December 2, 2010 29 comments
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Second Avenue Subway

Residents on 86th St. file suit over SAS entrances

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

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

Tenants and owners of an Upper East Side building that will one day have two entrances to the Second Ave. Subway in front of it have filed suit against the Federal Transit Authority and the MTA over what it claims are deficient responses to Freedom of Information requests. The suit stems from a two-year dispute over the MTA’s updated plan to build entrances along 86th St. instead of alone Second Ave., and while the legal issue itself — a FOIL appeal — is fairly straightforward, the underlying complaints are not.

The story begins in front of Yorkshire Towers, the building that spans the northeast side of Second Ave. between East 86th and 87th Streets. The building’s main entrances are on 86th St., and it features a U-shaped driveway as well as two other automobile access points to a subterranean parking garage. Originally, the 86th St. entrance would have been within the Food Emporium at the northeast corner.

A few concerns drove the MTA’s design changes. First, the authority scaled back the SAS from three tracks to two, thus necessitating a new technical examination of the station layouts. Second, the authority had determined that a combination of temporary construction easements and physical plant demands would have resulted in the shuttering of the supermarket and extensive structural work on the building. (For more, check out my 2007 coverage.)

After conducting a Supplemental Environmental Assessment, the authority determined that the proposed changes would have no adverse impact, and the feds signed off on the study. Despite community opposition to the plan, the MTA put forth the design seen above at the top of this post.

For the last few years, the Yorkshire Towers Tenants Association has tried to FOIL the documents that underlie the assumptions in the SEA study, and the MTA has, they allege, not obliged. Alleging that they’ve been “stonewalled,” the plaintiffs are requesting the documents because they believe the findings are fault.

Therein lies the rub. While the MTA is required to respond to the FOIL request, the tenants’ association is searching for a bigger fish to fry. “The RMA” — the Residential Midblock Alternative — says the filing, “would create unprecedented and substantial impacts to an area with a completely different residential character than the normal commercial intersections where most subway entrances are located.” Furthermore, the RMA would impact “four active driveways,” the Yorkshire plaintiffs allege.

Claiming that the MTA’s decision to eschew an RMA at 72nd St. is inconsistent with their proposal to go forward with one on 86th St., the Yorkshire plaintiffs believe the MTA’s FOIL responses to be inadequate. The Yorkshire requests are lengthy. You can read their full correspondence right here (PDF). They supplied only the MTA’s table of contents as evidence of a deficient FOIL response (PDF).

It seems to me though that the residents are by and large concerned about the sidewalks in front of their buildings and the driveway access. As the schematics show, the entrances will point away from the building entrances but will block the driveway’s sightlines, something the plaintiffs say will have a “serious[] impact[]” on “parents with children, older people and safety concerns.” It strikes me though as NIMBYism. They don’t want the subway access points in front of the building even if people won’t be walking past the building’s entrance.

I’ve included the lawsuit after the jump. Legitimate gripes or a typical “not on my sidewalk-and-driveway” complaint? You decide.

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December 1, 2010 25 comments
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AsidesNew York City Transit

Transit to increase weekend service for December

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

You wouldn’t know it from the warm, rainy day that has descended upon New York, but the calendar flipped to December today. With the final month of the year comes the holiday shopping and tourism season. Tourism spikes, and as track work slows down, subway travel climbs as more people fill the city. To meet demand and make travel more pleasant for everyone, Transit announced today that it will be increasing weekend subway service this month.

The services increases start this weekend and will last for the next three weekend through December 19th. During this stretch, headways on the IRT local routes — the 1 and 6 trains — will see wait times drop from eight to six minutes. The 2 and 3 trains will operate every five minutes instead of six, and the 4 and 5 trains will arrive every four minutes instead of every five. On the lettered lines, E service will increase from every ten minutes on Saturday evening and Sunday to every 7.5 minutes throughout the weekend. F and Q train riders will see also see waits shortened from 10 minutes to 7.5 minutes.

The MTA says ridership increases in December are driven largely by those out for holiday shopping. “This is an extremely busy time of year for weekend travel and we are increasing our scheduled weekend service in areas of historically high ridership,” NYC Transit President Thomas Prendergast said. “By adding extra trains we are able to increase capacity and also shorten the wait time for riders.”

December 1, 2010 0 comment
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ARC TunnelAsides

New Jersey disputing Fed’s ARC money assessment

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

The Federal Transit Administration, as I reported earlier this week, is demanding $271 million in ARC Tunnel money in the wake of Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to cancel the project, and New Jersey isn’t happy with the request. Right now, the state and its elected officials are looking at two possible outs. On the one hand, New Jersey’s federal representatives are looking to reduce the amount owed. “We have to talk to the FTA to mitigate that amount,” Senator Robert Menendez said. “We find that the governor made a decision, and we’re told to go and fix it. We’ll do the best we can.”

On the other hand, the state will authorize New Jersey Transit to file suit against the feds. New Jersey, reports Jason Method, “plans to argue that the federal government is using selective enforcement in attempting to recoup the money.” Said a Christie spokesman, “The governor will fight to make sure that New Jersey and its taxpayers are treated fairly by the federal government on this issue.”

In requesting payment, the FTA cited Section 5309(g)(3)(B)(iv) of Title 49 of the U.S. Code. That law governs FTA grants and reads, “If an applicant does not carry out the project for reasons within the control of the applicant, the applicant shall repay all Government payments made under the work agreement plus reasonable interest and penalty charges the Secretary establishes in the agreement.” If a suit is filed, the feds will argue that since New Jersey agreed to cover cost overruns, Christie’s decision to cancel the project due to concerns over cost is “within the control of the applicant.” Clearly, this drama is far from over.

December 1, 2010 14 comments
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MTA ConstructionSecond Avenue Subway

Walder talks 2nd Ave. Subway and weekend work

by Benjamin Kabak December 1, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 1, 2010

Jay Walder fields questions while standing in front of the Second Avenue Subway tunnel boring machine. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

On day one, Jay Walder, MTA CEO and Chair, and I talked about the fiscal state of the authority. On day two, I presented his views on labor relations and alternate revenue sources. Today, we start with a topic near and dear to my heart: the Second Ave. Subway.

We all know the story of the Second Ave. Subway. Eight decades in the making, the MTA is finally building part of the badly-needed line. Phase 1 of the SAS, one of the MTA’s three ongoing megaprojects, is due to be completed at the end of 2016 and at a cost of $4.5 billion. I quizzed Walder on the future of the rest of the project. Today’s is a longer segment so let’s dive right in.

Second Ave. Sagas: One of the main thrusts of my site is the Second Ave. Subway and the capital expansion plans. I know there’s still some funding needed for Phase One, but I have to assume it’s too far along for the plug to be pulled. The political ramifications from Washington, from the City, from the MTA would just be too great to stop the project. What do you see as the future of the Second Ave. Subway? Do you realistically see a Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4? How long should we expect that to take?

Jay Walder: My focus almost exclusively has been on the fact that we have three megaprojects that we’re doing right now. These are the first megaprojects that we have been doing for a generation — we’re really talking about 70 years depending upon how you count the stuff that has happened. My focus has been on ensuring that we’re able to deliver these projects on the budget and the schedule that we’ve laid out. As you note, our capital program is not funded with all of the money necessary to complete these projects right now, and that remains a concern. We need to find a way to ensure that we are completing these projects.

At the same time, my other concern is that the mantra of this organization has been that we have to bring our existing system back to good repair, and we need to keep it in that condition. There’s much to be proud of in that regard. I started in this organization in 1983. When I started, the mean distance between breakdowns on subway trains was 7000 miles. It’s about 150,000 miles today. That’s a startling difference. You go around and you look at our station environment, and your jaw drops. Some of the station work is so nice and it’s been brought back — either bringing back the existing stuff and some of the artwork we’ve put in, and other things like that.

But in fact, what this system is is a huge system that in essence is composed of lots of unseen hidden infrastructure that’s depreciating and deteriorating all the time. We need to continue to invest in that. The scarier thing is not the trains and the station. The scarier things are the signals and the pumps and the track and the shops and the other things that continue to need huge amounts of investment.

We have a subway system today that has one line — exactly one line — that has modern technology for signals. The L train is the only line on which we’re using communications-based train control. We’ve now awarded a contract for the second line on the Flushing Line. But really, this is the type of technology that we need to be using across our system now. We are fortunate that we don’t have the red tags and the track problems and the other things that were going on in the late 1970s and early 1980s but we don’t have that because we invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the normal replacement of tracks. So that’s where I’ve been focused so far.

If you look at the Second Ave. Subway piece, to their credit, the planners with the way they set this up are achieving a very usable segment of a railway so that when it opens in 2016, you will have something that will connect into the rest of the system, is a usable railway and will make an immediate difference in what happens. You’re well-placed point is that if we don’t stop there, where do we go from here? The intent is that it goes south from there, and funding-available, that is exactly what everyone’s objective will be. We also have pieces of preexisting tunnel north so you may well have the opportunity to pick up both ends of that.

Will future sections of the Second Avenue Subway see the light of a day? (Click to enlarge the map)

Second Ave. Sagas: The people I’ve spoken of say Phase 2 would be easier to build out than the other phases, but they wonder what the appetite for a project that’s taken longer than initial thought, that costs more than initial thought. Where will the money come from or the will and drive to see it through?

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December 1, 2010 31 comments
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View from Underground

Video of the Day: Roosevelt Island tram returns

by Benjamin Kabak November 30, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 30, 2010

Via The New York Post comes a video look inside the brand-spankin’-new Roosevelt Island Tramway cars. Out of service for the past nine months as the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation modernized a system prone to leaving commuters dangling 250 feet above the East River, the new cars are bigger, more stable and, supposedly, longer lasting than the ones they’ve replaced.

“Roosevelt Island’s Tramway is once again the most modern urban aerial transportation system in the world,” Leslie Torres, President of RIOC, said this morning. “It’s built to serve residents, business, and tourists for the next thirty years.”

The tram upgrades cost a total of $25 million — with $15 million coming from the state and $10 million from the RIOC. The modernized tramway includes two separate tram systems in which each cable operates independently of each other. This way, the RIOC can better conduct preventative maintenance while keeping one side of the tramway in service. Cabins are now attached with double-hanger arms for a more stable ride, and the tramway is now equipped with four back-up generators. (In April 2006, the tramway had stalled above the East River for 11 hours.)

“The tram is not just a vibrant symbol of all that is unique about Roosevelt Island,” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said at the ribbon-cutting. “It’s an only-in-New York icon of our great city just like the Empire State Building or Grand Central Station. It’s also an extremely active, critical mode of mass transit, and I am delighted to join its thousands of riders in welcoming it back and better than ever.”

November 30, 2010 5 comments
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International Subways

In Los Angeles, a subway system grows

by Benjamin Kabak November 30, 2010
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 30, 2010

The LA subway system is set for a massive expansion. (Map via The New York Times)

For decades, New York City has been the transit capital of the U.S.A. We enjoy an expansive 468-station, 722-mile subway system that runs 24 hours a day and stretches across five boroughs. Transit’s daily ridership is higher than the combined total from every other subway system in the country, and without the subways, New York City as it is today would simply not be a viable geographic urban hub.

But over the last four decades, as the region has struggled to maintain its vast infrastructure, expansion plans have fallen by the wayside. Since the opening of the Chrystie St. Connection in 1968, the city hasn’t built out its system. A modest expansion along Archer Ave. and the completion of the 63rd St. tunnel were the major projects during the 1980s and 1990s. Today, at a cost of nearly $7 billion, the MTA is adding one stop to the 7 line and three along the Upper East Side’s stretch of Second Ave. It isn’t, by any means, impressive.

Three thousand miles away, on the coast known more for its cars than its trains, the City of Angels is working toward its own subway system. Los Angeles is planning to spend $40 billions on a 28-mile expansion of its rail transit system. The city will build an 8.6-mile extension of the Purple Line through Koreatown, an 11-mile addition to the Gold Line, an 8.5-mile light-rail route from LAX and another light rail route from Santa Monica to Culver City Adam Nagourney in The Times today takes a look at this reimagining of the Los Angeles transitscape:

Taken together, these developments have emboldened mass transit enthusiasts here and lent credibility to what has become something of a legacy project for Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who ran for office pledging to build a transit system that would upend long-established commuting habits and ease what has long been a bane of life in Los Angeles.

“This put to rest all this talk of, ‘Will we ever build a subway?’ ” Mr. Villaraigosa said, somewhat triumphantly, in an interview. “This is a big deal. People have been talking about it for years. And they were making fun of me: ‘Where is the subway?!’ ”

Los Angeles once had a large, intricate and thriving public transportation system, with so-called Yellow Car trolleys that ran on downtown streets and a vast network of Red Cars, operated by the Pacific Electric Railroad, that ran throughout the region. This was dismantled amid the city’s fervent embrace of the automobile (encouraged, in no small part, by oil interests in Los Angeles that realized the economic potential of the car).

But with a vote by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s board last month to approve the Purple Line expansion, there is a consensus that these projects are going to be built, even among those who describe them as a waste of money in a region that will never embrace mass transit. The projects are being financed by a half-cent sales tax surcharge approved by Los Angeles voters two years ago and expected to raise $40 billion over the next 30 years.

Yet, in LA, as the pipe dream of the Subway to the Sea inches closer to reality, residents, planners and politicians are still questioning the wisdom behind the spending. For Mayor Villaraigosa, the $40 billion appears as a traditional bond issue. Since the city plans to add distance and capacity, they can bond against future anticipated fare revenue, but even then, many wonder if Los Angeles can become a city of the subway.

One mass transit consultant from the Bay Area has labeled the plan in no uncertain terms. “They have been pushing rail expansion for decades now,” Tom Rubin said, “and it has not had much of an impact in terms of increasing transit ridership. The big problem is that these are very, very expensive, and we wind up spending so much money on building these rail lines that there is not enough to operate bus service. So we wind up cutting back on bus operations and then raising fares, which drives the riders away.”

Rubin highlights the same capital-vs.-operations battle being fought in New York, but he seems to ignore that adding distance to rail makes pushing for it as a viable modality more appealing. If the subway goes where people need it to go, they will leave their cars behind. If, as promised, a 50-minute drive becomes a 25-minute subway ride, driving becomes a waste of time.

“The science of public transit is not too complicated,” Robert Cervero, director of Berkeley’s Transportation Center, said to The Times. “It comes down to how time-competitive transit is with the private car. If it takes two to three times longer to get from Point A to Point B by transit, the vast majority of folks will drive. If it’s faster going by bus or train, then most will forsake their car and ride transit.” (Jonathan Hiskes at Grist disputes this simplification.)

Ultimately, Los Angeles won’t move ahead of New York anytime soon, but the Land of Freeways is moving forward. On the East Coast, we’re stuck in neutral. Saddled with debt, unable to issue bonds appropriately and faced with crushing costs, our 106-year-old subway system expands outward slowly, if at all.

November 30, 2010 26 comments
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