Buses

Defending the 34th St. Transitway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 22, 2010

Project opponents believe the 34th St. Transitway will blight the area. (Image via NYC DOT)

Since early 2008, New York City has been working its way toward implementing a true Transitway along 34th St. The city’s plan would include all of the trappings of Select Bus Service — dedicated and physically separated lanes, pre-board fare payment, etc. — and an elimination of two-way traffic along the thoroughfare. This heaven for pedestrians and transit would provide for higher-speed connections to, from east to west, the 6, N, R, Q, B, D, F, M, 1, 2, 3, A, C and E trains as well as a stop at Penn Station. Who could argue against it?

Well, as the Stop the 34th Street Transit website makes abundantly clear, the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association thinks these upgrades are the devil incarnate. Powered by people who are mostly irate over the fact that taxis won’t be able to drop them off directly in front of their apartments, these wealthy residents have couched their opposition to the Transitway in faux-populist terms. They claim that a “wall of buses” that operate at “rapid” speeds will “create safety issues for young children.” They claim the Transitway will “clog small streets with traffic.” They claim noise and air pollution levels will increase. They ignore the reality that pedestrians will find 34th St. far friendlier with the Transitway than without.

My favorite argument is one of blight. Saying that they’d prefer elevated train lines because they “had the courtesy of being above street level,” the Transitway opponents claim that the bus lane improvements “risk re-creating the old els’ blight, depressing home values and the viability of local businesses.” Even though the NYC DOC is aware of the more legitimate concerns, Murray Hill will not be easily swayed.

It’s easy to mock these folks not brave enough to put their names on their critiques for their windshield/NIMBYism perspectives, but as Streetsblog notes, those who support this project have to take these opponents seriously. CB4 on the West Side supports the project while CB 6 on the East Side isn’t a fan. Thus, proponents of better bus transit need to convince CB 5 that this is a worthwhile project, and at 6 p.m. today at the YMCA on 14th St., that vital community board is hosting an open house.

With this Transitway, bus speeds will increase by 20-35 percent depending upon the time of day, and the city is prepared to ensure adequate curbside access. Traffic will be calmed, and the area will become more accessible. Streetsblog’s Ben Fried sums up the benefits:

Passengers on 34th Street currently travel at an average 4.5 mph in regular curbside bus lanes. The transitway project can set a major precedent, establishing the city’s first physically separated bus lanes and speeding up the tens of thousands of daily bus trips on 34th Street. New curb extensions, pedestrian medians, and, potentially, public plazas would transform the corridor and transfer large swaths of space from traffic to people.

So if you have a chance tonight, go to the YMCA at 125 West 14th Street at 6 p.m. and make your voices heard. After all, in the area around the proposed Transitway, 86 percent of workers commute by transit or their own two feet and 82 percent do not even own cars. We don’t want to see a vocal minority stop a vital transit project, and their spurious claims should not carry the day.

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MetroCard

MetroCard: A problem of proprietary technology

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 22, 2010

MetroCard error messages seem to be an increasingly common phenomenon. (Photo by flickr user Triborough)

One day in the not-so-distant future, the MetroCard will die an ignoble death. Instead of an extraneous piece of plastic with a sensitive magnetic stripe, New Yorkers will wave their smart chip-enabled credit cards at a reader to pass through a swipeless entry point. It will speed of the city’s buses and eliminate the need for those annoying tics and error messages so prevalent at subway entrances.

For now, though, the MetroCard, outdated for years and clunky in its uniqueness, lives on. In his subway column today, Daily News writer Pete Donohue looks at the state MetroCard Vending Machines and finds maintenance and service lacking. As the system and technology grows older, it is, unsurprisingly, breaking down more frequently. He writes:

Transit workers have been called to repair the machines 234,170 times this year through September – approximately 870 times a day, Metropolitan Transportation Authority data show. This year, each defect went uncorrected on average 6.18 hours, up from 5.08 hours two years ago…

There are 1,648 MetroCard machines. Even with a defect, a machine regularly will still work to some degree. It might not accept dollar bills but will process a debit or credit card. It might sell MetroCards but not single-ride tickets…

You can thank those shifty-looking guys standing by the turnstiles for some of your MetroCard woes. The aptly named “swipers” swipe people through turnstiles for less than the $2.25 fare. They jam different machine components, like the bill-handling unit, to increase demand for their services. Still, even these ubiquitous scammers aren’t prolific enough to cause an average 26,000 repairs a month. Only 30% of repairs are attributed to tampering, the data show.

The machines are relatively old, and definitely cranky. They were installed about a decade ago and never replaced. They are at the edge of their “useful life,” an MTA spokesman said.

Donohue notes that Transit employees 124 workers who can service these machines. Based on these numbers, each worker must make approximately seven service calls per day to machines that could be anywhere in the system. Keeping the MVMs operating at top shape then is a Sisyphean task.

Meanwhile, as the MVMs break down, I’ve noticed an increasing number of error messages on the turnstiles themselves. “Please Swipe Again” has never been so abundant. Perhaps that’s because of the decreasing number of MTA station agents turnstile cleaners who are around to remove build-up from the magnetic card readers. Perhaps these error messages are due to the “useful life” of the technology. Most likely, the problems are a combination of the two.

Ultimately, the end-of-life problems that we’re seeing with the MetroCard technology is indicative of the issues with proprietary technology. Back in 2000, the Village Voice ran an exposé on Cubic and its multi-million-dollar relationship with the MTA, and the alt weekly highlighted the Closed Loop problem. Many of the problems mentioned in the article have since been addressed, but the MTA is still working with a clunky technology designed in the early 1990s that hasn’t achieved widespread adoption outside of the city. It will inevitably break down, and if the failure happens before the MTA’s next-generation fare technology is in place, it will be both costly and disastrous to maintain this aging infrastructure.

Those in charge at the MTA are well aware of this problem. In my conversations with the MTA officials, I’ve heard about the need to bring the contactless fare payment system online sooner rather than later. Still, we’re a few years away from that reality, and the MetroCard machines and card readers must last until then. Frequent breakdowns will just become a fact of life as the technology nears its 20th anniversary.

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Staten Island

Building a subway to Staten Island with ARC dollars

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 22, 2010

Schematics of a 1912 plan to connect Staten Island with the BMT via a subway tunnel under the Narrows. Click to enlarge.

While New York City’s rail plans for Staten Island include just a modest proposal to reactivate the North Shore rail line and Mayor Bloomberg wants to spend the federal government’s $3 billion left over from the ARC Tunnel on a 7 line extension to Secaucus, one Staten Island politician would prefer to see the city deliver on a long-promised subway line to the island. State Senator Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) said this weekend that instead of pursuing a subway extension to New Jersey that “flies in the face of practicality and fairness,” the city should connect Staten Island to the rest of New York’s extensive subway system.

“If the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) wants to truly move people out of their cars and onto rail, extending a subway to the Island is the way to do it,” Savino said in an interview with SILive.com’s Judy Randall. “The MTA should complete a 1912 plan that would have rail and freight access from the terminus of Victory Boulevard to Brooklyn, along 67th Street, and then utilize the R train route along Fourth Avenue. The projected cost of the plan is $3 billion, the same as the extension of the 7 line under the Hudson River.”

The long-planned extension of the R train under Narrows wasn’t the only idea Savino put forward. “If a bi-state alternative is necessary in order to access federal funds, the city could extend the Hudson Bergen Light Rail from its present terminus at 8th Street in Bayonne over the Bayonne Bridge, making a ‘northwest passage’ to Manhattan via the PATH trains in Jersey City and Hoboken,” she said. “Keep in mind that 12,000 Islanders work in Hudson or Bergen County and 100,000 Islanders work in Manhattan every weekday.”

By my count, this is now the fourth public claim New York officials have staked to the ARC tunnel money. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has called for the money to go toward MTA capital projects, and a group of House representatives echoed that call on Friday. Mayor Bloomberg of course is working on his 7 line program, and Savino wants to bring it home for Staten Island. Is her plan feasible?

In August, I explored the long and tortured history of a subway to Staten Island, and even then, I omitted the early years. Since the dawn of the 20th century, city planners had promised a subway to Staten Island from via the Narrows. Articles from 1901 and 1903 mention those plans, albeit in skeptical tones.

In 1919, the most ambitious expansion plans involved a tunnel under the Narrows as well as another to Lower Manhattan through the New York harbor. Had that Staten Island subway been realized, it would have traveled under Kill Van Kull and through New Jersey or via a direct line past Ellis and Bedlow Islands under the shallow part of the bay. Both routes would have connected to the IRT just north of South Ferry.

Today, the only feasible — and I use that word loosely — approach would seem to be via the Narrows to the BMT Fourth Ave. line. It’s five miles from South Ferry to the northern tip of Staten Island but just one mile under the Narrows. The line would branch off at around 59th St. where a short tunnel stub exists, but the trains would make the long, slow slog to Lower Manhattan via the 4th Ave. local and Montague St. tunnel. Such a trip would arguably be slower than taking the ferry, and without significant subway development in Staten Island, it wouldn’t provide comprehensive service at that end either.

Ultimately, it seems as though Savino’s subway plan is a wise one on paper that flies in the face of practicality. It would, however, make far more sense to Hudson Bergen Light Rail because it would draw riders from an underserved part of Staten Island. Only then with ARC money could dreams of better transit from Staten Island be realized a century in the making.

“In 1898, when the boroughs voted to consolidate,” Savino said this weekend, “Staten Island voted overwhelmingly to become part of New York City on the basis of two promises, a municipal ferry and subway service. After seven years we got ferry service, but 112 years later we are still waiting on the subway. Staten Island is part of New York City, with over half a million people. It is past time we have similar transportation alternatives that other boroughs have.”

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BusesMTA Technology

Looking in-house for a bus tracking system

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 21, 2010

Will the MTA be able to develop a bus-tracking system internally?

One of the MTA’s fanciest new tech toys that would, if rolled out systemwide, greatly improve the bus system is BusTime tracking program unveiled in October. Using technology developed by Clever Devices, the MTA can present real-time bus location information along the M16 and M34 routes, and the authority hopes to bring this to the rest of the city.

There is a hitch though as there often is. Clever Devices’ technology is very expensive — prohibitively so for a system as vast as New York’s, and according to a recent post on the MTA Developer Resources’ Google Groups, the authority is looking for an in-house solution. The MTA’s Bus Customer Information Systems team is searching for a Technical Analyst (pdf) and a Senior Business Analyst (pdf) who will help evaluate a pilot and scale it for full-fleet deployment.

The project description provides a glimpse into the authority’s thinking:

We are using modular components, Open Standards, Open Data, and (when appropriate) Open Source Software to lower costs and bring benefits to our passengers as quickly as possible. Real-time bus information will be made available to passengers over the web, mobile devices, and text messages, as well as applications developed by developers using open data feeds.

We are playing the overall role of a systems engineer and integrator, allowing us to buy different components of the system from different vendors (e.g. on-bus hardware separately from the central data/web server) and connect them using open standard interfaces. This approach depends heavily on a small but highly-skilled team of analysts and engineers to understand the requirements of our large and complex real- world bus operation, architect the overall system, and work with multiple vendors to ensure the system is delivered as designed.

While subway countdown clocks make travel more pleasant and less stressful, bus timers can revolutionize a bus system. If riders know exactly where the bus is and how long it will take to arrive at a certain stop, potential riders will be far more likely to wait for the bus and can time their trips appropriately. It removes the mystery and frustrating waits — currently one of the bus system’s biggest problems — from the ride, and it can make the bus a convenient part of travel instead of a trip that happens only if the bus is in sight. I’ll be watching this effort closely as the MTA tries to bring a badly-needed technology to its vast bus fleet .

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New York City Transit

Falsified reports plague signal inspection measures

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 20, 2010

Signals at Ditmars Boulevard await an incoming train. (Photo by flickr user zin1966)

Thousands of subway signal inspection safety reports have been falsified over the last few years due to pressure from management, a report by the MTA Inspector General revealed on Friday. According to Barry Kluger’s ongoing investigation, inspections that should have been completed within 30 days were delayed for days or even weeks, and the safety of the subway’s complex signal system could have been compromised.

Due to the importance of his findings, Kluger has shared his initial report with Transit before releasing it to the public, and MTA officials have taken swift action. “Instead of waiting for results to come in and issue a report, we’ve been working with NYC Transit and supplying them with some of the results on an ongoing basis,” Kluger said in a statement. “They’ve moved quickly to try and get their arms around this and have been making a number of changes.”

Heather Haddon of The Post has more:

NYC Transit supervisors falsified thousands of vital signal inspections across the subway system for years, leaving straphangers at risk for deadly collisions like the one that killed nine people in Washington, DC, The Post learned.

Across every line, a cabal of managers in the signal department forced maintainers to fib on the inspections by threatening them with punishments like loss of overtime, according to a sweeping six-month investigation by the inspector general of the MTA, which oversees NYC Transit. At least one high-level chief, Tracy Bowdwin — the MTA’s highest-earning Signal Department supervisor at $165,000 a year — was demoted last week in the fallout, and managers are still being questioned, transit sources said.

The dangerous practice was a response to ramped-up pressure from the MTA to meet federal standards that call for railway switches and signals to be inspected monthly, sources said. “Instead of five signals to inspect [in a shift], they would give you 15. There’s no way 15 could be done, but they would say you had to do it,” one signal maintainer said. “It’s like you think your car is fine after going to the mechanic, but they never looked at it.”

According to Haddon’s report, “workers who didn’t comply lost overtime privileges or got sent to the dirtiest, most leak-infested tunnels.” That’s revenge at its worst for practices that could land some Transit workers in legal trouble.

For its part, Transit spokespeople ensured reporters that the signals that were the subject of Kluger’s report have been reinspected and that the system is safe. “We also took swift action to ensure that none of these deficiencies undermined the signal system’s safe operation or its underlying components,” NYC Transit Spokesman Charles Seaton said. “The signal system is safe.”

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Service Advisories

Get more Second Ave. Sagas and weekend changes

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 19, 2010

The last few weeks have been busy ones for transit in the area, and as the fare hikes loom, the news promises to come fast and furious. In addition to finding out all of the latest on site, you can find more Second Ave. Sagas across the Internet. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for tidbits traveling around the city and become a fan — or like — Second Ave. Sagas on Facebook.

Additionally, I’ve added a few features to the site. I’m now updating on Saturdays and Sundays, usually with just one post per day, and the weekend service advisories will always been available in the main column and on the weekend service advisories page. Bookmark that for easy access.

Meanwhile, it’s Friday night, and you know what that means. The weekend work will slow down after this weekend when Thanksgiving and the holiday season descends on New York. For now, we have another weekend of work. These come to me via New York City Transit and are subject to change without notice. Check the signs in your local station and listen to on-board announcements for the latest. Subway Weekender has the map.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, November 19 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, 1 service is suspended between 242nd Street and 168th Street due to rehab work between 242nd Street and Dyckman Street stations. The A train, free shuttle buses and the M3 bus provide alternate service. Free shuttle buses operate:

  • On Broadway between 242nd Street and 215th Street stations, then connecting to the 207th Street A station.
  • On St. Nicholas Avenue between 191st and 168th Street stations.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, uptown 1 and 2 trains skip 50th, 59th, and 66th Streets due to track work south of 66th Street. Customers traveling to these stations may take the 1 or 2 trains to 72nd Street and transfer to a downtown 1.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 11 p.m. Sunday, November 21, Flushing-bound 7 trains skip 82nd, 90th, 103rd, and 111th Streets due to switch renewal work at 111th Street. Customers traveling to these stations may take a Flushing-bound 7 to Junction Blvd. or Willets Point and transfer to a Manhattan-bound 7.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, Manhattan-bound A trains run on the F line from Jay Street to West 4th Street, then local to 59th Street-Columbus Circle due to work on platform edges, tiles and stairs at Broadway-Nassau St. Manhattan-bound A trains skip High, Broadway-Nassau, Chambers, Canal and Spring Streets. Customers traveling to these stations may take the A to West 4th Street and transfer to a downtown A.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, A trains bypass Broadway-Nassau St. due to work on the Fulton Street Transit Center.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, November 20 and Sunday, November 21, there are no C trains between Manhattan and Brooklyn due to preparation work on the Culver Viaduct. C trains are rerouted to the E line between Canal Street and World Trade Center station, the last stop. (When we do work on the Viaduct, we usually suspend the C because operating the F on the A, C line in Brooklyn would causes delays if all three lines are operating together. However, suspending the C would cause the A to make all local stops in Manhattan and Brooklyn which would increase travel time. Instead, we are rerouting the C to the WTC station to accommodate E customers. The A will run normally in Manhattan and Brooklyn and the F will run local in Brooklyn on the A,C line to Euclid Avenue.)


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, November 20 and Sunday, November 21, C trains bypass Broadway-Nassau Street due to work on the Fulton Street Transit Center.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22 in Manhattan, D trains run local between 34th Street and West 4th Street due to work on the 5th Avenue Interlocking Signal System. In Brooklyn, D trains run local on the R line between 36th Street and DeKalb Avenue due to preparation work on the Culver Viaduct.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, Coney Island-bound D trains run on the N line from 36th Street to Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue due to structural repair and station rehabs from 71st Street to Bay 50th Street and ADA work at Bay Parkway. There will be no Coney Island-bound D trains at 9th Avenue, Ft. Hamilton Parkway, 50th, 55th, 71st, 79th Streets, 18th and 20th Avenues, Bay Parkway, 25th Avenue and Bay 50th Street stations. To reach these stations, customers may take the D or N to New Utrecht Avenue/62nd Street or Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue and transfer to a Manhattan-bound D.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, E trains run on the F line between Roosevelt Avenue and 34th Street-6th Avenue due to work on the 5th Avenue Interlocking Signal System. The platforms at 5th Avenue, Lexington Avenue-53rd Street and 23rd Street-Ely Avenue stations are closed. Customers may take the R, 6 or free shuttle buses. Shuttle buses connect Court Square (G)/23rd Street-Ely Avenue (E), the Queens Plaza (R), and the 21st Street-Queensbridge (F) stations.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, November 19, to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, free shuttle buses replace F trains between Jay Street and Church Avenue due to preparation work on the Culver Viaduct. F trains run in two sections:

  • Between 179th Street and Jay Street, then rerouted on the C to Euclid Avenue and
  • Between Church Avenue and Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, November 19 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, G trains operate between Court Square and Hoyt-Schermerhorn Sts. Customers may take the A or F at Hoyt-Schermerhorn Sts. to Jay Street and transfer to a free shuttle bus making all F, G stops to Church Avenue. These changes are due to work on a temporary platform, signal work and preparation work on the Culver Viaduct.


From 11:30 p.m. Friday, November 19 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, free shuttle buses replace M service due to platform edge rehabilitation between Metropolitan Avenue and Myrtle Avenue-Broadway.


From 12:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday, November 21, free shuttle buses replace N trains between Ditmars Blvd. and Queensboro Plaza due to work on the elevated structure.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, Brooklyn-bound N trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge from Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue due to grouting and track work at Cortlandt Street. There is no N service at City Hall, Rector, Whitehall, Court, and Lawrence Streets. Customers may use the 4 train at nearby stations instead.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, November 20 to 5 a.m. Monday, November 22, Manhattan-bound N trains run on the D line from Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue to 36th Street due to track panel installation between Kings Highway and north of Bay Parkway. There are no Manhattan-bound N trains at 86th Street, Avenue U, Kings Highway, Bay Parkway, 20th Avenue, 18th Avenue, Ft. Hamilton Parkway and 8th Avenue stations.


From 6:30 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, November 20 and Sunday, November 21, Brooklyn-bound R trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge from Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue due to grouting and track work at Cortlandt Street. There is no N service at City Hall, Rector, Whitehall, Court, and Lawrence Streets. Customers may use the 4 train at nearby stations instead.

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ARC Tunnel

New York House delegation asks for ARC money

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 19, 2010

While it sounds as though the $3 billion in federal money that was to go to the ARC Tunnel is slowly slipping away from the northeast, a group of New York House representatives have written to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood formally requesting the money be transferred to New York. The lawmakers — Carolyn Maloney, Jerrold Nadler, Peter King, Gregory Meeks, José Serrano, Paul Tonko, Bill Owens, Nita Lowey, Edolphus Towns, and Steve Israel — have asked for federal support for the Second Ave. Subway, the East Side Access project, Moynihan Station and high-speed rail initiatives.

The money, they say, should remain in the northeast, and since New York City leads the nation in transit riders, it is only natural for the funds to boost federally-qualifying projects. “In a region with strong patterns of mass transit use, coupled with a serious lack of capacity, the taxpayers of this nation can rest assured that federal transportation dollars redirected to projects in our area will be put to good use,” the letter says.

As the fallout from Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to cancel the ARC project has continued, the city has jockeyed for the funds. Recently, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed to extend the 7 line from 11th Ave. and 34th St. under the Hudson River to Secaucus, New Jersey. He had hoped to secure federal funding for this project, but sources said that LaHood was considering redistributing the money to other eligible New Starts projects. This letter then might just be a last-gaps effort to keep this money in the area.

“We believe,” it says, “that it makes sense to keep the New Jersey transportation funds in this region to help address our area’s severe and growing transportation needs. We have great projects underway that can make effective use of the funding.”

After the jump, read the full text of the letter.

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AsidesMTA Absurdity

A broken escalator and a credibility gap

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 19, 2010

In the Daily News today, Erin Durkin has a fairly routine story on an escalator outage at the High St. subway stop. One of the escalators at the deep-cavern station has been out since September 9, and despite MTA pledges to fix it in a timely fashion, the authority has already missed three repair dates. Many older riders struggle to mount the 60 stairs, and Brooklyn politicians are disappointed. “A broken escalator is frustrating, but missed deadlines and broken promises make a bad problem a whole lot worse,” State Senator Daniel Squadron said.

The MTA has long had a touch-and-go relationship with its escalators. Sometimes, the private developers responsible for maintaining the escalators don’t pick up their end of the deal; at other times, Transit’s own crews underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete the job. It doesn’t matter what the excuse is, but this problem gets at the MTA’s credibility gap. No matter how much effort the authority puts toward internal restructuring and cost-cutting, no matter how many improvements they make, until they can show to the public that seemingly minor repairs — such as a broken escalator — can be made in an efficiently and timely fashion, New Yorkers will never believe the authority can do all it says it can do in the transit realm.

One teacher who lives in Brooklyn Heights put it best. “We don’t believe them anymore,” Helen Pearlstein said. “They say the end of October, then they said the beginning of November, then they said the 15th. Residents here are just so frustrated.”

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Buses

SBS bus lane camera enforcement to start Monday

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 19, 2010

Starting on Monday, New York’s Select Bus Service will become even more select as the MTA and DOT are turning on five bus-lane enforcement cameras along the First and Second Ave. M15 SBS route. The city says the SBS route has sped up travel along the M15 corridor by 15 minutes, and with camera enforcement on tap, buses should move even smoother along the route.

“The City’s 2.8 million bus riders have been held hostage for far too long by motorists who routinely block bus lanes, and these cameras will send a clear message that bus lanes are for buses only,” MTA Chairman and CEO Jay Walder said in a statement. “We have already been able to speed up travel times along First and Second Avenues by more than 15 minutes on the M15 and these cameras will help to further improve service.”

The cameras were long a sticking point in the state legislature as upstate representatives objected on tenuous privacy grounds. Earlier this year, as part of a legislative compromise, Albany authorized the use of cameras along only Select Bus Service. Vehicles will be allowed to enter the dedicated bus lanes only to make the next available right turn or to “expeditiously” drop off and pick up passengers. Everyone else will be subject to a $115 fine.

Initially, five cameras will be turned on this Monday with more to come along the Manhattan SBS route and the Fordham Road corridor in the Bronx. DOT will be responsible for viewing the footage, and they will issue the summons — called here a Notice of Liability. The NYC Department of Finance will be responsible for adjudicated summons disputes.

“SBS is redefining East Side transit,” said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “Dedicated lanes and paying before boarding are already speeding buses, and now camera enforcement will give M15 customers a VIP ride.”

These cameras will help beef up DOT’s initial video technology enforcement efforts that currently target only taxis. Until now, due to jurisdictional and home rule issues, DOT has been able to summons only taxi medallion owners who have been shown to violate bus lanes. Those disputes are heard by Taxi and Limousine Commission administrative law judges, but unfortunately, the number of summonses issued to taxi drivers has not been released to the public.

Ultimately, these cameras a much-delayed and welcome development as the city looks to speed up its bus service, but the plan isn’t perfect. Even if fewer cars are straying into the bus lane, those that are waiting to turn right or are discharging passengers have the potential to impact the SBS speeds. Ideally, the city would be building out dedicated bus lanes with physically separated rights-of-way as cities across the U.S. and Europe currently enjoy. Without it, SBS will be nothing more than a glorified version of the Limited service that falls short of a true bus rapid transit network.

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Staten Island

NYCEDC urges reactivation of SI’s North Shore rail

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on November 19, 2010

An overview of Staten Island's North Shore ROW. (Via the MTA's North Shore Alternatives Analysis)

For the past few days, the idea of building out the 7 line to Secaucus has caught our collective imaginations. While that plan certainly has its appeal from a regional perspective, within the five boroughs, certain areas still suffer from subpar rail access though, and if it’s possible to improve access without spending billions on a cross-Hudson tunnel, the city should do so.

Prime for development is Staten Island’s North Shore. This underdeveloped area features a rail right of way that has had a mixed history. It opened to customers 120 years ago and served passengers for 63 years. From 1953-1989, the ROW serviced freight trains from New Jersey, but it shut for 16 years. Since 2005, the North Shore rail line has seen limited freight service, and the ROW has been problematic for community development to say the least. The rail line is in poor shape, and the ROW has cut off access to Staten Island’s waterfront.

Late last year, Staten Island pols and the MTA started making noises about reactivating the North Shore rail line, and early this year, the authority unveiled an alternatives analysis at an Open House. At the behest of and with money from Staten Island’s borough president, the authority delved into the island’s subpar mass transit. During the open house session, the authority presented various alternatives for improving transit along Staten Island’s North Shore. These plans included a light or heavy rail option for the ROW, turning the ROW into a dedicated BRT bus lane, improving local bus routes and expanding ferry and/or water taxi service. (For more on these options, check out the MTA’s NSAA planning page.)

Currently the MTA is working to turn the long list of potential projects into a short list before selecting a locally preferred alternative by mid-2011, but if the New York City Economic Development Corp. has its way, the locally preferred alternative will involve reactivating passenger rail service on the North Shore right-of-way. The NYCEDC has released preliminary results of a two-year study entitled North Shore 2030, and NY1’s Amanda Farinacci detailed, the study calls for rail service along the North Shore.

Unfortunately, the NYCEDC’s position is more nuanced that a flat-out call for rail service. They’ve identified what it would take to turn Staten Island’s North Shore into a more economically viable community and seem to believe that the rail line is in the way. At various points, the one-track route has a right-of-way of upwards of 100 feet, and the at- and below-grade areas block direct access to the waterfront, a vital part of the rehabilitation plan.

In its most recent presentation (PDF), the NYCEDC has urged the MTA to relocate the at-grade portions of the right-of-way. By doing so, waterfront businesses will see their land-use conflicts fade away, and the city will be able to improve the pedestrian and bicycle corridor along the shore. No cost estimates for the work have been released yet.

For now, the planning work will continue on this not-so-ambitious project. It should be a priority, but the MTA isn’t spending significant chunks of money on anything other than its current megaprojects. As this deal doesn’t have the same obvious real estate benefits as the Subway to Secaucus, the city won’t embrace it as readily as it has that crazy plan for the 7 train. Still, a direct rail line to the ferry terminal along Staten Island’s North Shore would serve as a prime impetus to development.

Perhaps then we should be thinking small and ensuring projects such as this are realized before we start sending the subway to far-off lands across the Hudson River. Perhaps we should ponder a subway tunnel to Staten Island instead of Secaucus. After all, it’s been nearly 100 years in the making.

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