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"subway noise"

The noisy, noisy subways

by Benjamin Kabak July 20, 2009

written by Benjamin Kabak on July 20, 2009

Every day, my morning commute exposes me to countless noises. According to a recent study, those noises could be very damaging to everyone’s ears.

My commute starts out at 7th Ave. on the BMT Brighton Line in Brooklyn. If I have to wait, inevitably a Coney Island- or Bright Beach-bound train will idle in the station with its air conditioner humming. When my ride arrives, the brakes squeal as the train pulls into the station. As the train heads north to Manhattan, it rumbles through tunnels at various speeds, and after leaving Atlantic Ave., the train curves its way to De Kalb Ave. with metal-on-metal screeching through the tunnel.

This noise doesn’t even count the various on-car noises. The PA systems on the B train are in a terrible state. Constant high-pitched feedback has become the norm, and on-board announcements run the gamut from inaudible to deafening. Personally, I don’t listen to my iPod in the morning, but plenty of people do. I know this because I can hear the loud, loud music leaking out through shoddy headphones. In the end, that’s a lot of noise.

Just to drive home the point, though, a bunch of academics have verified that, yes, the subways are very loud. A survey conducted last month by a bunch of students at the University of Washington and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health founds that subway rides expose us all to “high enough to potentially increase the risk of noise induced hearing loss.”

The release about the study had more:

Using sensitive noise dosimeters, the team of researchers…conducted hundreds of measurements of noise levels at platforms and stations, as well as inside of vehicles on New York City subways (MTA and PATH), buses (MTA), ferries (Staten Island), commuter railways (LIRR, SIRR and Metro North), and the Roosevelt Island tramway.

The scientists found that on average, the MTA subways had the highest noise levels, at 80.4 decibels (dBA), followed by the Path trains, at 79.4 dBA, and the tram, at 77.0 dBA. The lowest average levels measured, 74.9 dBA and 75.1 dBA, were obtained from the LIRR and Metro-North trains, respectively. The very highest levels measured in the study were found on an MTA subway platform (102.1dBA) and at a bus stop (101.6 dBA).

In contrast, the noise level of a whisper is 30 dBA, normal conversation is 60 to 70 dBA, a chainsaw is 100 dBA, and gunfire is 140 dBA.

In general, noise levels were significantly higher at platforms compared to inside vehicles for all forms of mass transit, except for ferries and the tram. The borough with the highest mass transit noise levels was Manhattan, followed by Queens and the Bronx. Major hubs were noisier than local stops and underground trains and stations were significantly louder than those aboveground.

The researchers warned that their findings were alarming. “At some of the highest noise levels we obtained, 102.1 dBA on the subway platforms, as little as two minutes of exposure per day would be expected to cause hearing loss in some people with frequent ridership, based upon the International Organization for Standardization models for predicting hearing impairment from noise,” Robyn Gershon, a Columbia scientists, said.

Experts have urged New Yorkers to use ear muffs and ear plugs, but the vast majority of commuters do not. As the MTA replaces its rolling stock, the more modern cars are quieter with better brake technology. As the ancient track beds are modernized, the MTA is trying to implement infrastructure that will dampen the noise.

Still, though, are commutes are loud. As we wait for trains in the morning and bury ourselves in newspapers, books and iPods, the trains fade into the backgrounds. But the truth remains: That is one very loud background.

July 20, 2009 15 comments

Congestion Fee

Apparently, the subways are a bit crowded

by Benjamin Kabak June 26, 2007

written by Benjamin Kabak on June 26, 2007

Graphic courtesy of The New York Times. Edited by me. For the original, click here.

As the debate over the congestion fee rages, New York City Transit decided to release a report this week that came as a surprise to, well, exactly no one. The subways are very crowded, the MTA announced. In fact, the subways may even be too crowded.

To which, I say, “Duh.”

New York City Transit has studied its train lines, looking for on-time performance during rush hour and trains in which each passage gets three square feet of space. In other words, everyone gets their own 20-inch square tile on which they can stand. In a city in which three square feet can cost a lot of money, this valuable subway real estate is hard to come by. The New York Times summarizes:

What is revealed is both predictable and eye-opening. Many subway lines are simply maxed out, meaning there is no room on the tracks they use to add trains that could carry the swelling numbers of riders. And that has implications that range from day-to-day decisions about how trains travel through the system to long-term planning on how to best move people around a growing city…

[NYCT President Howard] Roberts said that on many subway lines, especially the heavily used numbered lines, there is little or no room to accommodate more riders.

The Daily News picked up on the story with an interesting twist. They claim that there is no room for the boost that may come due to the congestion pricing. As those numbers amount to several hundred thousand new riders out of an estimated 7 million per day, I find this conclusion hard to believe and so does the MTA.

Let’s think about this: First, we have to consider the Second Ave. subway. One of the goals of the congestion fee is to properly fund this new subway line. Considering that three of the most overcrowded subway lines are the 4, 5 and 6 trains and the Second Ave. subway is designed to alleviate just this overcrowding on the East Side IRT, well, then we’ve solved one problem.

Second, I believe that the congestion fee won’t affect the IRT subway lines as much as anyone thinks. First, nearly everyone commuting from northern Manhattan and the Bronx along the IRT lines already takes the subway. If commuters choose to drive from north of 86th St. to anywhere in the so-called Central Business District, they do so because they can, by and large, afford to do so. The people on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side will continue to pay $500-$600 a month to park their cars in garages, and they will pay the $8 congestion fee.

Relatedly, the lines that will see the most growth are those out in Queens. While the E is already overcrowded, I think the F and V trains from Queens to Manhattan will see a large increase in passengers. I think the Bay Ridge and southern Brooklyn trains will see a large increase in passengers. For those people, driving is simply quicker than taking slow subways (and isn’t that why we need express service along the F tracks?). Some will continue to drive; others won’t.

But in reality, the transit lines that should see the greatest increases in ridership numbers are Metro-North, the LIRR, New Jersey Transit and PATH trains. Commuters who, for some reason, aren’t using commuter rail lines will turn to those trains as a way to avoid the congestion fee if the economics make sense.

So, yes, the subways are very crowded. Anyone who rides the train on a daily basis can attest to that fact. But it won’t be worse after the congestion fee, and in the long run, the congestion fee is designed, through funding the Second Ave. subway, to make life better for straphangers. The City’s quality of life — from traffic to noise to the environment — will improve and so will subway service, crowded trains or not.

June 26, 2007 10 comments

Interborough Express

The Interborough Express is Kathy Hochul’s crowning project, if she wants it badly enough

by Benjamin Kabak February 9, 2022

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 9, 2022

The light-rail version of the Interborough Express, shown here connecting to the L train at Wilson Ave.

When Gov. Kathy Hochul announced her support last month for a truncated version of the RPA’s 25-year-old Triboro RX proposal, I was surprised. If it survives a gubernatorial election this year, your garden-variety NIMBY opposition and a lengthy review and planning process, the renamed Interborough Express — a 14-mile circumferential route that will connect Bay Ridge to Jackson Heights using an existing freight rail corridor — will become a welcome addition to the city’s transit-scape. But the break-neck pace that started with an out-of-the-blue announcement during her January 5 state-of-the-state speech and continued two weeks later with the release of the MTA’s feasibility study and the start of the environmental review process threw me for a loop.

Why? Because I had simply forgotten the MTA had previously announced plans to study the route. I forgot that they had already cut out the Bronx portion. I forgot it had attracted some support from a handful of New York Assembly representatives. The feasibility study was so out of mind, I didn’t even include it in my transportation to-do list for the new governor last summer. When I looked back at the timing of the MTA’s original announcement, the world could be forgiven for forgetting. The next day, Andy Byford announced his resignation and a few weeks after that, the pandemic descended upon us. The Triboro plan was one of the last bits of normal from 2020, and the feasibility study faded into that Before Times feeling.

But enough about me; let’s talk about the IBX. We’re definitely maybe kinda sorta getting it eventually as Hochul announced last month that the MTA had determined it is indeed physically feasible to add passenger to the freight line. “Infrastructure is all about connection, and with the Interborough Express we can connect people to their family and friends while also improving their quality of life,” the governor said. “The Interborough Express will connect Brooklyn and Queens, not only shaving time off commutes but also making it easier to connect to subway lines across the route. With the completion of the feasibility study, we can move forward to the next phase of this project and bring us one step closer to making the Interborough Express a reality for New Yorkers.”

The IBX will connect with 17 subway lines and the LIRR.

But what will the Interborough Express be? To learn that, we turn to the Feasibility Study and Alternatives Analysis, a flashy, 28-page PDF that builds on the work the RPA has published on their three-borough proposal, most recently in its Fourth Regional Plan a few years ago. In that document, we learn that the new two-borough plan could be conventional rail, a new light rail or bus rapid transit. At this point, you may be wondering, “Why not Triboro? What happened the Bronx?” Well, as we learned in 2020 and as the MTA briefly notes in the new report, including the Bronx extension would require significant expansion across the Hell Gate Bridge, and due to cost and feasibility concerns, it’s not in the cards for now. Turning the Interborough Express into the Triboro line will be another generation’s problem to solve.

Even without this third borough, the MTA believes that 74,000 to 88,000 passengers per day, depending on the mode, would make use of this circumferential line that begins to fix the Manhattan-centric nature of the subways. It may have made sense in 1922 for nearly all subways to feed into Manhattan south of 60th Street, but in 2022, the need for better connections through the so-called far-flung neighborhoods of the so-called Outer Boroughs could not be more obvious. The 14-mile passenger route would connect with 17 subway lines and the LIRR in Brooklyn and Queens while providing a high-speed, frequent transit service for areas of the city currently heavily reliant on private automobiles for commuting. It makes use of an existing right-of-way, and if the stars align, it’s a project that could be completed by the end of the decade. The MTA hasn’t put a price tag on the alternatives, but MTA CEO and Chair Janno Lieber told reporters the project would be in the “single-digit billions” (which means the Interborough Express can be yours for the low, low price of $9,999,999,999 or less).

What this not-ten-billion will buy us remains to be seen, but the MTA has narrowed down the options to three: conventional rail sharing tracks with the preexisting freight service, light rail or bus rapid transit. Due to FRA requirements, the light rail and BRT options would have to run on rights-of-way physically separated from the freight service. For most of the route, these two options would exist next to the freight tracks but certain segments would have to run on newly-built viaducts above the Bay Bridge Branch corridor or on city streets.

The conventional rail option is most similar to London’s Overground or Paris’ RER. Trains would look similar to subways, could operate every five minutes and may even interoperate with the LIRR (though the MTA cautions this would be “very complex and expensive”). Ridership is estimated at 84,500 per day, but on the downside, end-to-end travel time for conventional rail is 45 minutes.

From a ridership perspective, the study seems to favor light rail, projecting 39-minute travel time and nearly 88,000 riders. Stations could be built at street level and “smaller LRT vehicles are able to navigate tighter curves and steeper gradients, which in turn reduce the amount of private land that needs to be taken.” But LRT is also the costliest due to the need to build out full physical separation from the freight tracks. The third option — bus rapid transit — would be the “lowest-cost alternative to build” with the “most operational flexibility.” But to meet the projected BRT ridership of 74,000, the MTA would have to run buses every 2.5 minutes during peak hours. The MTA cites “traffic and service reliability impacts” as potential challenges, and I generally favor either of the two fixed-rail options instead.

A cross-section of the ROW reveals how the different modes would share space with the freight lines. Due to FRA requirements, light rail and buses can’t share track and limited dedicated viaducts or surface streets would be incorporated into the route.

With the feasibility study completed, and three alternatives tabbed for further review, the MTA at the direction of the governor will move this project into the environmental review phase. Never mind that the agency hasn’t released a 20-year needs assessment since the mid-2010s; never mind that funding remains a mystery. With the governor behind this project serving as its champion, it will move forward. That’s just the way the politics of transit expansion operate.

So next up are some public meetings, and as the line runs through Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Borough Park, Kensington, Midwood, Flatbush, Flatlands, New Lots, Brownsville, East New York, Bushwick, Ridgewood, Middle Village, Maspeth, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, those public meetings should be varied. As the study noted, “up to seven out of ten people served will be from communities of color, approximately one-half will come from households with no cars, and approximately one-third will be living in households at or below 150% of the Federal Poverty Line.” While every elected official from these neighborhoods voiced support, Queens Assembly Rep. Cathy Nolan (and some of her more NIMBY-esque constituents) worried about noise though I believe they’re worried about the wrong ROW, focusing their comments on the Montauk Line rather than the route of the IBX.

With key representatives, including council member Bob Holden, on board, political opposition to the IBX is unlikely to materialize from Brooklyn and Queens, but Bronx representatives at clamoring for a piece of the pie. They feel perennial left out of the transit expansion discussion and for good reason. But Hochul wants to move fast, and if we take the MTA at even 40 percent of its word, the connection over the Hell Gate Bridge seriously complicates the project. The beauty of the Interborough Express is that it builds on a pre-existing right of way without the need for complicated construction. At-grade stations are easy; re-arranging the Hell Gate Bridge isn’t. A complicated, lengthy project isn’t in the cards politically, and the Bronx will have to wait.

The Bay Ridge Branch (left) as seen from the Fort Hamilton N train station. Will these tracks one day see passenger service? (Photo: (Marc A. Hermann / MTA on flickr)

The biggest wild card may be Hochul’s reelection, but as of now, she’s sailing to her own term and at least four years during which she can use the power of her office to push through this project. In fact, Hochul even managed to get Rep. Jerry Nadler on board. The long-time Congressman had long opposed passenger use for the Bay Ridge Branch as he has spent decades pushing for a freight tunnel under the New York Harbor. As part of the Interborough Express plan, Hochul announced, the Port Authority will examine how the Cross Harbor Rail Freight project will work with the Interborough Express.

“The Interborough Express is an important project that has the potential to expand transit access to underserved neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. This project can and should co-exist with the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel project which would finally connect the New York metropolitan region to the national freight rail grid by removing trucks from our streets and diverting them to the underutilized rail network,” Nadler said in a statement. “We can and should use the Bay Ridge line to move both people and goods, and I am confident that we can advance both the Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel and the Interborough Express together.”

So where does that leave New York City? This is the most real and concrete step the Triboro/IBX proposal has taken in its decades-long history, and it moves the project from the theoretical pages of the RPA to the real process begun by the MTA. So long as Hochul is the governor and wants to push this through, the project has the transit champion it needs to succeed. At 2 Broadway, there’s even a dream of finishing it by 2030 as the MTA eyes another round of big-ticket transit expansion projects.

I have one final suggestion thought. It could use a catchier name than one that reminds the world of an intestinal ailment. Is the Brooklyn-Queens Express taken? I hear the BQX is an awfully catchy acronym.

For a deep dive into the ins and outs of the challenges that await the Interborough Express and a view of the AECOM report on which the MTA’s alternatives analysis was based, head on over to Streetsblog and read through Dave Colon’s analysis. Alon Levy was disappointed in the narrow scope of the alternatives analysis but finds much to like in the speed at which Hochul is pursuing the project. I agree with Alon on both points.

February 9, 2022 17 comments

MTA Politics

#HochulsMTA: A Transportation To-Do List for the New Governor

by Benjamin Kabak August 29, 2021

written by Benjamin Kabak on August 29, 2021

Kathy Hochul took the subway from midtown to Harlem earlier this month because it was the quickest way to go, her comms team said. (Photo via Bryan Lesswing)

With Andrew Cuomo out of the picture and his infrastructure legacy receding with him, our attention turns to Kathy Hochul. The new governor hails from Buffalo and is the first Upstater to live in the Executive Mansion since the 1920s. This may be a blessing for the NYC region as Hochul doesn’t come with a long history of, say, MTA animosity or the auto-centric policies of some suburban politicians.

After years of heavy-handed, ego-driven interference with MTA operations from Cuomo, New Yorkers are looking for signs from Hochul that change is on the way, and so far, the new governor has been saying all the right things. “The MTA is going to be far more liberated,” Hochul said to NY1’s Errol Louis during Thursday’s Inside City Hall. “I will not be filling positions with political allies because there’s a lot of talent out there and I want a diverse population, representing the riders, which is a diverse population.”

But words are just promises that need to be fulfilled. It’s only the first week of the Hochul Administration during the doldrums of August, and the new governor is still getting her sea legs. Plus, Hochul may be only a steward for the next year. She’ll be in office for only 12 months before facing a wide-open primary next year, and the jockeying for a four-year term may limit her power. So with politics in New York very much up in the air, Hochul’s first actions on transportation are still to come.

In the meantime, I have my own thoughts on what she could do. So without further ado, a ‘to do’ list for the new governor.

Pledge MTA Leadership Stability

To say turnover was high at the MTA during Gov. Cuomo’s time in office is an understatement. I put together a list of all the people to serve as either MTA head or New York City Transit President during the ten years, seven months and 23 days of Cuomo Administration, and you can see why leadership continuity and righting the MTA’s ship have often felt impossible over the past decade.

MTA Chair & CEO	New York City Transit President
Janno Lieber (Acting)	Craig Cipriano (Interim)
Pat Foye	Sarah Feinberg (Interim)
Fernando Ferrer (Interim)	Andy Byford
Joe Lhota	Phil Eng (Acting)
Fernando Ferrer (Interim)	Tim Mulligan (Acting)
Tom Prendergast	Darryl Irick (Interim)
Fernando Ferrer (Interim)	Ronnie Hakim
Joe Lhota	James Ferrara (Interim)
Jay Walder (nominated by Paterson)	Carmen Bianco
	Tom Prendergast (nominated by Paterson)

The MTA has careened from one leader to the next with few spending enough time to implement reform or long-term strategic planning. For her part, Hochul should commit to stability atop the MTA. She should swiftly move to install Janno Lieber as the permanent head of the MTA, as she has indicated she is likely to do, and she should consider Alon Levy’s advice in hunting for agency heads: Look outside the U.S. for leadership; consult with Andy Byford on potential NYC Transit presidents; and give a good, long look to candidates outside of the Anglosphere.

Again, she’s saying the right things. In an interview with The New York Times, Hochul discussed her relationship with the MTA and struck a different chord than Cuomo’s heavy-handed interference. “Authority doesn’t have to be concentrated in me when I’m hiring outstanding professionals who know their jobs,” she said, in a veiled reference to the failed Byford-Cuomo relationship. “I will be there if there’s something that’s not following what I want. But I also know that day to day, they’re the ones that have to be accountable. Accountable to the riders, accountable to me. But I also know that granting more freedom allows them to rise.”

But even here, Hochul may not be able to bring the stability the MTA needs to chart a multi-year course. She almost immediately has to face an election campaign, and while she will enjoy an incumbency advantage, she’s going to have to beat more well-known candidates to earn her own term. If she loses, the next governor will likely want to appoint his or her own MTA heads, thus continuing this leadership upheaval in the short term. Anyone who fits Levy’s bill or may be inclined to take on the task of leading New York City Transit may not want to do so until the gubernatorial election is settled. Still, if Hochul can commit to stability and a proper relationship with her MTA heads, that’s a step in the right direction.

Clean House at the MTA Board: Get Rid of the Cuomo Holdovers

The MTA Board will be much better off when Larry Schwartz and other Cuomo holdovers are removed.

While we all acknowledge the governor of New York controls the MTA and can do with the agency as he pleases, the way Andrew Cuomo interacted with his own MTA heads sometimes sounds unbelievable. Cuomo would name his own agency heads and then appoint Board members whose main responsibilities involved inserting themselves into day-to-day MTA operations, essentially as the Governor’s enforcers/spies to undermine the agency heads. The worst of this was the Larry Schwartz/Andy Byford dynamic, and it led to animosity among MTA leaders and fear among the rank-and-file that the governor’s right-hand man would show up with demands out of left field, usually unreasonable.

The next MTA Board meeting isn’t until late September, and not a single one of Cuomo’s appointees should still be on the Board for that meeting. Already, Linda Lacewell, Cuomo’s former head of the Department of Financial Services, stepped down from the Board when she resigned from her position, but Cuomo’s other appointees remain. Jamey Barbars (one of the few Cuomo Board appointees with actual transportation experience), Haeda Milhaltses and Robert Mujica have said nothing, but Schwartz has defiantly said he’ll stay on the Board until Hochul kicks him off.

Claiming he did nothing wrong (despite being named in Tish James’ report numerous times and separately being accused of threatening county leaders to support Cuomo or risk their vaccine supply), Schwartz told The Post he will not leave “on my own.”

“I’ve been looking for over two years to get off, so I’m not looking to stay on,” he said. “But I will do the right thing. If they feel I can be a help short term, or long term, we can talk about it. I’ll do whatever the new administration wants. They’re aware.”

Schwartz has constantly used his Board position to bolster Cuomo and undermine those willing to show an ounce of independence so the claim he’s been looking to leave for two years doesn’t pass the smell test. Either way, he may soon get his wish.

“I’m committed to ensuring that the people named in the attorney general’s report will no longer serve in my administration,” Hochul said when asked last week about MTA Board holdovers. “I’ve asked for a 45-day period. Some individuals will be gone sooner than that. Many have already been removed or left on their own because they knew they were not going to be in my administration…I’ll be naming a whole slate of new people to fill those soon-to-be vacant positions and make sure entities like the MTA are free from interference, from political influences and also to make sure we have the best talent. So I would just say, stay tuned.”

Stay tuned we will, but if Schwartz and Co. are at next month’s MTA Board meeting, something will have gone horribly wrong.

Speed up congestion pricing

The MTA recently announced a rather lengthy review process for congestion pricing that could delay implementation of the fee for nearly two years. The agency first must conduct public hearings, scheduled to begin in September, prepare the Environmental Analysis and then bid out the infrastructure required to toll Manhattan’s Central Business District. Meanwhile, congestion has made New York City worst-in-the-nation traffic grind to a halt, affecting air quality, productivity and safety. The Mayor’s advise was to “improvise,” and congestion pricing is a key hope to untangling the roads while funding the MTA’s capital plan.

Another two-year delay after the initial two-year delay represents a failure to respond to the crises of climate change, gridlock and MTA funding. Here, Hochul’s hands may be tied, and congestion pricing could become a hot button issue among suburban primary voters next year. But the new governor has vowed to do what she can to speed up the process, and she can use her bully pulpit to push the MTA and feds on reducing the timeline for review. It’s absurd on its face for an environmental review process for something clearly designed to help the environment to take two years. The mayor has made noises about the lengthy timeline, and advocates are pushing hard for a shorter timeline. But Hochul has not yet taken any steps to exercise the power she has.

“The mayor and I spoke about congestion pricing…We had a very good conversation and there are certain legal requirements in place that have to be followed,” Hochul said earlier this month while still Lieutenant Governor.” I have supported congestion pricing. But in terms of the timing, I have to follow what’s in place right now, but it’s very much on my mind. I’m also meeting with the MTA to find out our financial situation to see how long we can go without the money we anticipate from congestion pricing.”

Ditch the LGA AirTrain

My views on the backwards Laguardia AirTrain are well documented: It’s a project with no transit utility pushed through because Gov. Cuomo came up with the idea, and the EIS appears to have been heavily weighted, perhaps illegally so, to ensure the Willets Point connection was the only viable option. At the least, Hochul should halt the AirTrain project and order a review to assess the level of Cuomo’s political interference into the environmental review process. At best, Hochul should push for a true transit connection that extends the subway from Astoria to give a subway desert a station while providing a useful connection to the airport.

So far, Hochul has been mum on this project. She supported it as Lieutenant Governor but has yet to address it since taking her new job. Many advocates have urged her to reassess the project while the RPA continues to ignore the transit analysis in favor of Looking Strong On Infrastructure. I do not have high hopes here that we’ll end up with a better connection to Laguardia Airport, but Hochul could rescue this project from becoming a $2 billion boondoggle.

Untangle the Gateway/Penn Station South mess Cuomo created.

Throughout the Trump years, Cuomo spent a lot of time and energy arguing for the feds to pony up their share of the dollars for the Gateway Tunnel. The agreement forged in the waning months of the Obama Administration would have had New Jersey and New York each paying a third with the feds picking up the final part of the tab. But Trump stonewalled the deal and never intended to pass an infrastructure bill. So Cuomo could hammer him on Gateway while scoring political points in true blue New York.

Once Biden took over and Gateway with its steep price tag suddenly become that much closer to a reality, Cuomo mysteriously pulled an about-face. He started making noises about halting Gateway or not contributing New York’s share to the project, much to the confusion of, well, everyone. As I wrote last week, this type of political shenanigans was typical Cuomo, and Hochul can walk it back pretty easily. Recommit New York to Gateway, and figure out if Cuomo’s Vornado hand-out at Penn Station South has any merit. These projects should get the level of attention they deserve under a Hochul administration paying lip service to giving the experts a say but could fall to political gridlock as well. This is the toughest of the tasks Hochul has to face and may fall victim to the looming primary season.

So that’s that. The top five for the incoming governor will fill up her plate for the remainder of her term. It’s a chance for a new start for New York’s beleaguered transportation and transit policy makers, and as the post-Cuomo Era dawns, for the love of all that’s holy, please add some seats to Moynihan Station.

August 29, 2021 13 comments

View from Underground

Thoughts on what’s driving New York’s $50 fine for refusal to wear masks on transit

by Benjamin Kabak September 23, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on September 23, 2020

MTA Chairman & CEO Patrick J. Foye, Interim NYCT President Sarah Feinberg, LIRR President Phil Eng, and NYCT Chief Customer Officer Sarah Meyer hold a press conference at Atlantic Av-Barclays Center on Mon., September 14, 2020 to launch a new public service campaign to encourage mask usage along with the new $50 fine policy for those who refuse to wear face coverings on public transit. (Photo: Marc A. Hermann / MTA New York City Transit)

For those New Yorkers venturing onto the subway these day, it has become a hobby of sorts to track mask compliance. Jose Martinez of THE CITY runs Twitter scorecards tracking mask compliance using the terminology from the MTA’s own ad campaign, and while mileage may vary by line and time of day, mask compliance on transit in New York City is generally very good with 90-95% of riders properly masked up, according to MTA figures. For public health purposes, that level of mask usage is sufficient to significantly slow the spread of an airborne virus.

Still, compliance – with a mask over both one’s nose and one’s mouth – may have been slipping in recent weeks, and even 90% compliance isn’t good enough for the governor. Why? I’ll get to that shortly, but to that end, earlier this month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a new executive order “directing the MTA to develop a plan to bolster mask compliance across public transportation system’s subways, buses and railroads.” The MTA, in turn, announced a $50 fine for any rider who refuses to wear a mask. In a sense, that’s an academic recitation of events. As Cuomo controls the MTA, he’s the one imposing the $50 fine, and the agency is simply serving its purpose as political cover for the governor’s decision.

“While mask compliance in the MTA system remains very high, we want to make sure that people feel comfortable coming back to public transportation,” Governor Cuomo said in his press release last week.

On Monday afternoon, MTA officials gathered at the Atlantic Ave. subway stop to discuss the enforcement effort and $50 fine. Enforcement of rules in the subway has turned into a bit of a hot-button issue in recent years as the MTA has faced criticism for heavy-handed fare enforcement efforts that seemingly target minorities and a ramp-up of NYPD expenditures at a time when transit budgets are crashing. Yet, during the press conference, MTA leaders took pains to stress the public health effects of wearing a mask and de-emphasize punitive punishment, especially when asked about the impact of a $50 fine amidst an ongoing economic downturn. “We’re not,” NYC Transit’s interim president Sarah Feinberg said, “looking for the police to fine people. We‘re looking for compliance.”

MTA CEO and Chairman Pat Foye echoed this approach. “This is not about revenue,” he said, “and we have no interest in issuing fines and summonses.” Rather, MTA officials said, agency employees and cops will first request that maskless passengers don a proper face covering, and if these riders do not comply, they could face a $50 fine.

On the surface, this seems pretty straightforward: In an effort to drum up confidence in transit, whose reputation has unfairly taken a hit during the pandemic, the MTA is enforcing the state’s mask mandate. The health behind wearing masks is clear: They are one of the single best ways to protect yourself and other people from the spread of COVID-19, and the MTA, which has drawn criticism for resisting permitting its workers to wear masks early on during the pandemic, is trying to be responsible to the riding public and its workers as New York City reopens.

But the intricacies are worth probing because this appears to be a tacit attempt at luring Manhattan desk jockeys back to their offices. Time and again, surveys have indicated that transit rides are a point of contention. Even though sitting in an enclosed office for 8-10 hours a day is far riskier than the 25-35 minute subway rides people take to get there, New Yorkers seem to fear those subway rides – where socially distancing is tough, if not impossible – more than anything. They fear unmasked passengers; they fear buskers and candy sellers. They fear an environment they cannot control, and if even those fears aren’t borne out by the science of the pandemic, they are legitimate psychological fears that politicians and bureaucrats should attack. By mandating masks and making a show of enforcing the mandate, the governor is trying to negate those public fears – and perhaps generate a push to get people back to work. He should ride the trains too. “We have to be able to say to the riding public that everyone will be wearing masks,” Cuomo said, “and if they refuse to wear a mask they will be penalized.”

It’s not quite that easy though, and the pitfalls are obvious. For instance, in late August, when I took a 2 train from Grand Army Plaza to Borough Hall, every passenger on my train was properly masked, but when the doors opened at Atlantic Ave., two cops without masks were patrolling the platform. In fact, some of the most egregious mask violators in the city are cops. Pictures abound online of officers gathered without masks, and a Twitter account tracks those incidents. Mayor de Blasio routinely claims he has spoken with NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea about mask compliance, but cops wear masks only for official press events (and even that’s not a given). Shea says his cops will be a part of the enforcement effort, but will they be wearing masks? MTA officials said only that they’ve requested as much from the police, but they have no authority here. Recently, I have seen an increase in masked cops in the subway, but they still seem to the most egregious and frequent offenders.

Just saw three NYPD officers on a subway platform, two maskless.

Me to one of them: “excuse me officer, are masks required on the subway?”

Officer [glaring at me, gritting his teeth; long pause]: “yes.”

— Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) September 22, 2020

The second issue concerns enforcement. When asked by Dave Colon of Streetsblog how the MTA planned to avoid targeting vulnerable communities, Foye said he disputed the premise of the question and declined to offer an answer. Will the enforcement effort focus on everyone? Will the cops target minorities as they often do with quality-of-life enforcement in New York City? Or will the cops pull back when video emerges of an escalated altercation as happened in the spring? Policing transit spaces in New York remains a prickly subject, and tensions are high.

Ultimately, as ridership inches toward 1.7 million per day, still just 31 percent of a normal weekday in 2019, and city politicians and business leaders make more noise about getting office workers back to their desks, comfort with transit will become a key issue. That’s why Cuomo and the MTA are going to enforce this mask mandate. Whether this leads to better compliance with public health orders or more flashpoints between the cops and New York’s citizens is an open question, but persuasion first and fines only after refusals is the path to follow. The MTA and the cops instructed to serve as enforcers should adhere to this approach carefully, and politicians should show their faith in the system by making a show of riding. Otherwise, transit will stagnant amidst public health concerns, and the city’s recovery will be that much slower.

September 23, 2020 9 comments

MTA Politics

Thoughts on the preordained passage of a chaotic ‘transformation’ plan

by Benjamin Kabak July 29, 2019

written by Benjamin Kabak on July 29, 2019

One element of our political times that unfolds constantly involves chaos. By introducing chaos to a situation, it’s far, far easier to get away with sleights-of-hands and other backroom dealings while the public is consumed with talking away and working through the chaos. It’s easy, in other words, to offer up a myriad of distractions while shuffling pieces behind the scenes to accomplish other political ends.

This isn’t an approach that’s particularly novel nor is it unique to any single politician or political party. It’s both a feature and a bug of the way news is produced and consumed amidst a 24-hour constant cycle of everything always being on, and New Yorkers keenly into transit have lived through this phenomenon for years. It started long ago when Andrew Cuomo begin his lengthy diatribes alleging, falsely, that he wasn’t in charge of the MTA. These were so successful that the New York City subway system was allowed to collapse and he still coasted to reelection, garnering significant support in the five boroughs.

During that period, instead of focusing on the lack of investment and the lack of leadership caused by politically-inspired churn atop the MTA, activists and journalists had to parry with Cuomo’s ahistorical account of the MTA. It was an exhausting, time-consuming distraction, and as the recent MTA Transformation Plan, approved last week by the Board despite unanimous public opposition, shows, we’re not out of these woods yet.

It’s been hard to keep track of all the MTA news lately, and only some of that is by design. We’ve had Con Edison blackouts that stranded trains during a recent heat wave, ongoing computer problems that led to a recent Friday evening meltdown for the ages, MTA Inspector General investigations into everything and, of course, the Transformation/Reorganization/Whatever You Want To Call It Plan.

The story behind the Transformation Plan itself is a simple one with some interesting twists and turns. A bunch of months ago, Gov. Cuomo called upon the MTA to transform itself. This, in and of itself, is something of a distraction because since Cuomo controls the MTA, a state agency, he can just reorder the transformation without going through the charade of a costly consultant study and Board vote. But the Board vote offers him a layer of plausible deniability. Even though he controls the management and operations of the MTA, a Board vote gives him cover to point fingers at a largely powerless group of people, all of whom he appointed. He has fully exploited the structure of the MTA to his political benefit time and time again while exerting full and total control over an agency that he rightly fully and totally controls. It’s chaos; it’s distracting; and it’s almost impressively genius. If only we all stood to benefit.

Since I last had a chance to analyze AlixPartners’ $4 million Transformation Plan a few days after it was made public, this sweeping plan to reorganize the MTA and cut a few hundred million dollars per year out of the agency’s expenses faced universal condemnation by the public and then a quick approval by the Board with only Veronica Vanterpool voting against it. I’ve never seen a charade so blatantly executed in public as the vote last week, and it’s hard to wrap my head around what happened. For hours on Wednesday morning, speaker after speaker took the microphone to speak out against the plan. Advocates condemned it as a rush job, not subject to proper public vetting that disempowered key leaders (such as Andy Byford) and failed to reform the core of the MTA. Others, speaking in support of Byford and Alex Elegudin’s renewed focus on accessibility, railed against the plan for once again treating the city’s most vulnerable as second-class transit riders. Others voiced support for Fast Forward and recent improvements (recent isolated performance meltdowns notwithstanding).

Still, the vote went on because it had to. The vote went on because the MTA was left up a creek without a paddle. It was mandated, legally, that the MTA Board approve this Transformation Plan, and they had no real choice. The key was a change in the state’s public authorities laws orchestrated by Cuomo during budget negotiations in June. The law, which you can read here, required the MTA to produce a transformation plan and approve — not vote on, but approve — the plan by July 31. Had the MTA Board voted down the plan, the agency would have been in violation of law, and it’s clear from MTA Board member and State Budget Director Robert Mujica’s comments on Wednesday that had the Board voted down the plan, the state would have withheld money the MTA badly needs. It was a legislative mandate through fiscal pressure, and another way Cuomo used the MTA Board to enact his will.

As part of this charade, a week before the Board vote, Cuomo sent a letter that sources within the MTA said came as a big surprise. You can read the missive right here, and you’ll see why one MTA source referred to it as an “unhinged rant.” It’s a rant about homelessness, time-and-attendance matters, speeds and signals and a reorganization plan with a purpose. It is in fact the chaos we’ve come to expect, a blurring of issues that obscures the reality that Cuomo knew all about the reorganization plan. In fact, I’ve heard from many sources that most folks within the MTA believe the AlixPartners plan was written long before this process was made public and serves to give cover to moves Cuomo wanted to make.

But that’s neither here nor there. The Governor of New York can do what he so pleases with the MTA as it is his to control. Following approval last week, Cuomo issued simply a two-sentence statement. “The MTA’s reorganization plan is a good start, but now it comes down to execution and sound management. The timelines should provide hard dates to assess progress,” he said. So the question now is: Does any of this matter or is it just politics as usual?

It matters. It matters because of the political message the Transformation Plan sends to key cogs such as Andy Byford and Pete Tomlin. It matters because of the ongoing hiring freeze that is rapidly draining the MTA of any talent current serving in-house and ensuring that any young talent looking to enter the transit field is frozen out of the largest transit agency in the country. It matters because it disenfranchised the public, through advocates whose concerns were ignored. It matters too because we’ve heard deafening silence from anyone else in Albany tasked with MTA oversight, a lukewarm milquetoast throw-away statement from the mayor who hasn’t even read the full Transformation Plan and a vehement statement in opposition from Corey Johnson.

Here's the entirety of the Mayor's statements on the MTA Transformation Plan from the press conference today.

It's the "I haven't read the book but here's my book report" approach to governing and leadership on an issue that touches millions of New Yorkers every day. pic.twitter.com/7jVOXfzs5e

— Second Ave. Sagas (@2AvSagas) July 25, 2019

The plan creates new layers of bureaucracy and takes critical responsibilities away from Andy Byford. Byford is the one who is actually showing us that improvements in accessibility and on time performance are possible. 2/5

— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) July 24, 2019

It’s just another reason why we need municipal control. We need real accountability, not another opaque power grab. We won’t really fix the MTA until NYC controls its own transit destiny. 4/5

— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) July 24, 2019

The subways and buses are the lifeblood of New York. Massive changes to that system should not be made in 90 days, so the Council will hold a hearing on the MTA’s plan. New Yorkers deserve real answers and a chance to be heard. 5/5

— NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson (@NYCSpeakerCoJo) July 24, 2019

Meanwhile, the Plan itself effectively disempowers all agency presidents, transfers key projects to MTA Capital Construction (the biggest source of MTA construction problems over the past decade and a half), borrows from Fast Forward while shunting aside Fast Forward’s main proponent, and erases progress spearheaded by people who aren’t Andrew Cuomo. The report talks too of “failure to attract talent” at a time when Byford has brought in a key accessibility proponent and a world-renowned signals expert. The former was not lost on accessibility advocates who raised such a stink last week that Cuomo enforcer Larry Schwartz had to promise additional accessible stations to save face.

Behind the plan, other efforts are at play to lessen the impact of those making a difference but conflicting with Cuomo. The new COO/Managing Director-type role proposed by the Transformation Plan is open only to outside candidates (so Cuomo can handpick the role and ensure Byford, for instance, can’t apply), and Transdev, a private transit operator, has been poking around the MTA of late. Remember that the initial versions of the plan initially called for subways and buses to be separated. That line was killed shortly before publication when advocates vehemently objected, but speculation is rife that Transdev will ultimately take over the city’s bus system. I’ll have more on that story in the coming weeks.

For now, Byford — and this is really about Byford — will serve on the new signals panel, another Cuomo attempt to step on feet. I’ll have more on that later too. But where this all leads is anyone’s guess. The MTA needs reform and reorganization, but it needs careful reform and reorganization. The people who are competent should be promoted and supported, but instead, we seem to be stuck in a chaotic process of reorganization spurred on to minimize the influence of those most competent who have been praised publicly. It’s petty politics, and it’s a whole bunch of chaos as we’re trying to cut through the noise toward a better commute. There’s no real way out here either, and the MTA’s millions of customers are simply pawns in an unnecessary political game of distraction, obfuscation and chaos.

July 29, 2019 11 comments

Congestion Fee New Jersey Transit

Thoughts on congestion pricing exemptions and the reaction from New Jersey

by Benjamin Kabak April 18, 2019

written by Benjamin Kabak on April 18, 2019

New Jersey politicians are arguing for exemptions to congestion pricing, a call that should be resisted by the Traffic Mobility Review Board. (Photo via flickr user Elvert Barnes)

In the week following Albany’s approval of congestion pricing, I wrote a piece for Curbed New York warning against an exemption-laden plan. The argument is a simple one: Small carve-outs can have a big impact on the effectiveness of both the revenue generation and traffic reduction pieces of congestion pricing, and the Traffic Mobility Review Board tasked with formulating the fees and structure of the plan should resist the political pressure and lobbying over fee exemptions as it works to formulate a plan throughout the next eighteen months.

Already, we’re seeing this lobbying unfold in predictable ways. Unions representing police officers have laughably called for a blanket exemption for all personal vehicles of any NYPD personnel stationed within the congestion pricing zone. Considering cops are the biggest offenders and non-enforcers of NYC’s traffic and parking laws, this demand hardly comes as a surprise, but it should be resisted at every turn. We’ve also seen New York politicians undercut the goals of congestion pricing by securing legislatively-mandated toll rebates for certain constitutions, and I’ll come back to that shortly. I instead want to focus on the reaction from New Jersey and how it underscores the way in which local politicians treat transit riders as second class citizens even when they far outnumber drivers.

What New Jersey Wants

New Jersey leaders have been making noises about congestion pricing for the past three weeks. We first heard Gov. Phil Murphy complaint reported by The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago. The Garden State governor is worried — worried! — that congestion pricing will cause New Jersey commuters to abandon their cars and use transit (which is of course the point), and he’s also worried congestion pricing will make traffic worse. “The solution cannot be one with the unintended consequences of making traffic worse and increasing reliance on the regional rail partners without their receiving additional support,” he said a few weeks ago.

At first, Murphy’s comments seemed to strike the right balance between concern for an overburdened and underfunded New Jersey transit network, but in recent days, he and other New Jersey politicians have shifted their focus back to drivers. In an eye-opening piece in The Times, Emma Fitzsimmons took a deep dive into these complaints and the “revenge” politicians in New Jersey want to enact on New Yorkers:

The mayor of Jersey City suggested that New Jerseyans should toll New Yorkers entering their state. A congressman is calling for federal legislation to guarantee that drivers — who already pay tolls to cross between the states — are not charged twice. Others believe a lawsuit could be filed to stop the tolls. “We are a little confounded about why suddenly New York would turn around and take a two-by-four to New Jersey,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat who represents a slice of New Jersey suburbs near Manhattan and plans to introduce a bill he hopes will pressure New York to give his state’s drivers a break.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, a Democrat, said he would fight any effort to double toll drivers using the George Washington Bridge, the world’s busiest span. “I won’t stand for it,” he told reporters, though he stopped short of summoning what he called a full “Jersey attitude” like other leaders seeking payback…

Drivers already pay as much as $15 to use the Lincoln and Holland tunnels or the George Washington Bridge to enter Manhattan. Some might switch to New Jersey Transit, the state’s commuter railroad and bus network. But the system is often no more reliable than the subway and also suffers from years of neglect. For that reason, some New Jersey leaders, including Loretta Weinberg, the Senate majority leader, argue that it would only be fair for New Jersey Transit to get a cut of the revenue from congestion pricing…

[Gottenheimer] plans to introduce a bill this week that could cut federal funding to New York or the transportation authority if New Jersey drivers are forced to pay two tolls for one trip into Manhattan. “I don’t look at it as retaliation,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “I look at it as encouraging continued cooperation.”

Fitzsimmons also tracked down some New Jersey-based Facebook commenters who have “threatened” not to drive into New York City any longer (which is, of course, the point). In a way, it’s quite the tempter tantrum from our neighbors to the west, but it also underscores how politicians view their constituents primarily as drivers and then secondarily, if that, as transit riders. In each case, these politicians object to an additional fee being levied on drivers and seem to focus on transit investment as an after-thought. That’s not the right way to look at things.

Each year, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council releases a hub-bound travel report, counting the number of people who enter New York City’s Central Business District and breaking it down by modality. This is convenient for us now because it overlaps 1:1 with the congestion pricing zone. Here are the latest numbers from 2017, and you’ll see that far more people from New Jersey rely on transit to reach Manhattan than on cars. The columns are, from left to right, “Entering,” “Leaving” and “Total.”

Considering these numbers, why are New Jersey politicians being so blind to the benefits of congestion pricing? By limiting the number of cars that enter Manhattan, the hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents who rely on buses will have shorter trips into the city, and the surrounding communities will see less pollution due to fewer cars, say, on the Lincoln Tunnel helix or jammed throughout the streets of Weehawken. Plus, most of these New Jersey residents then have to use New York City’s streets and its transit network once they arrive in Manhattan, and these commuters and visitors will continue to enjoy the benefits of increased New York City transit funding and fewer cars on city streets. These people count, and they are more of them. New Jersey politicians would do well to remember that as they fight against a rational congestion pricing.

What New Jersey Can Do

Ultimately, New York City does not exist as a place for New Jersey drivers to have unfettered free access to limited city streets. New York City and New York State can determine its own transportation and transit future, and if drivers form Missouri have to pay, so too must drivers from New Jersey who make the choice to drive into Manhattan. But that doesn’t mean New Jersey can’t do anything.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to the claim that New Jersey’s own transit system may not be able to handle increased passenger loads due to mode shift following implementation of congestion pricing in early 2021, but that’s also a good 20 or 21 months away. New Jersey has plenty of time to get its house in order. It can reconfigure lanes heading into the Lincoln Tunnel to ensure buses have more space and priority. It can also begin the process of building out its PATH service and tackling the problems with New Jersey Transit. But it must focus on bolstering transit and not being overly protective of drivers.

For years, regional transit wonks have tried to raise alarms over New Jersey’s approach to spending transportation dollars. When governor, Chris Christie shifted millions away from rail and New Jersey Transit to widen the turnpike and engage in other road-related work. It’s not New York’s responsibility now to fund New Jersey’s transit deficits, and if the Garden State politicians are concerned about capacity and reliability constraints, they need to start working on these issues today while congestion pricing is in the planning stages. Ultimately, if NJ Transit fails to meet demand in a post-congestion pricing world, that blame will fall squarely on the shoulders of politicians who aren’t listening when there’s still time to act. Threatening federal action or imposing higher user fees on New Jersey roads as revenge seems laughable, but at the least the latter could be a rational step toward funding New York’s transit investments.

Unfortunately, our own governor seems amenable to negotiating with New Jersey on some limits on the impact of the fee, and New Jersey’s State Senate President Steve Sweeney appeared to back that up in a statement. “After conferring with Governor Cuomo on the MTA’s efforts to implement Manhattan’s central business district tolling, I am confident that we will have a voice in the process that will allow us to protect the interests of New Jersey’s motorists. We will work in a coordinated way with the MTA, New York State, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and with other jurisdictions to develop a fair tolling system,” he said.

Whether it’s an elimination of a potential double-tolling scenario for drivers using the George Washington Bridge and heading south or a waiver related to tunnel usage, exemptions should be resisted. If New Jersey drivers want to use New York City streets, they can pay to do so. That is, after all, the entire point of congestion pricing.

It’s Not Just New Jersey

While New Jersey is raising the biggest stink right now, they’re not the only ones making moves to limit the impact of traffic-reduction fees. Assembly rep. Jeffrey Dinowitz announced a full rebate of all Henry Hudson Bridge tolls for any Bronx resident regardless of whether the final destination is within the congestion pricing zone or not. This is a mistake, and it’s designed to encourage more driving at a time when New York City needs to limit auto usage for both environmental and productivity reasons. Certain Queens drivers are getting toll breaks as well, and politicians are pushing for exemptions for motorcycles, so-called “green” cars, Staten Island drivers and Queens residents (as I explored in my Curbed piece).

Congestion pricing and crafting the proper plan was always going to devolve into a tough political fight, and we’re seeing the contours of it take shape. It would serve politicians well to remember that even if a few people have to pay the fee, the benefits — and the number of people who enjoy those benefits — far outweigh this new cost. As the climate changes around us, we don’t have time as a society to waste arguing over the edges of a congestion pricing fee, and as a city stuck in a transportation rut, we need to clear streets of cars and repurpose them for a higher and better use while funding transit. That’s what congestion pricing does, and exemptions should be resisted.

April 18, 2019 38 comments

View from Underground

To combat fare evasion, MTA re-alarms some emergency exits

by Benjamin Kabak February 6, 2019

written by Benjamin Kabak on February 6, 2019

Here’s the MTA solution, via NYPD edict, on how to fix the “crisis” of fare evasion: constant siren wailing from exiting with no one there to do anything about it.

This is one random minute at 14th.

cc: @MTA @Gothamist @NY1 @JMartinezNYC @errollouis @NYCMayorsOffice @NYPDnews pic.twitter.com/IlZMLP0U7s

— Jeremy Wilcox (@jwilcox79) January 16, 2019

New York City, they say, is a cyclical town. Neighborhoods wax and wane; popular restaurants open and close; the city rises and falls; and even the Mets may be good again one day. Not everything that comes back is welcome, and four years after finally silencing emergency alarms, the MTA has turned some back on, at the request of the NYPD, in an effort to fight fare evasion. That ear-splitting sound, the subject of much consternation a decade ago, is back.

I first wrote about the debate over emergency exits back in 2009 when the conversation focused around the the ethics of opening doors knowing an ear-splitting siren would follow. In 2010, the New City Transit Riders Council issued a damning report on the ineffectiveness of the alarms. With the alarms still armed, Riders Council observers witnessed thousands of riders streaming out of the doors (and a handful entering without paying through the doors). In 2014, The New York Times created an op-doc on the doors, and when 2015 dawned, the MTA silenced the alarms, seemingly for good.

“Our customers,” then-agency spokesman Kevin Ortiz said, “have been quite clear in displaying their annoyance and letting us know that the alarms really were the number one annoyance for them as they travel through the system.”

Well, sounds that were annoying have been forgotten, and as the MTA and NYPD look to combat what they claim is a real increase in fare evasion, alarms at certain key stations have been turned back on. I first got wind of the unwelcome return of these alarms in mid-January when Twitter reports came in of alarms at Union Square, Columbus Circle, Jay St.-Metrotech and Times Square, among other stations. The alarms are not, as I can attest, back on at every station, and it seems that only a few fare evasion hotspots have been tagged for activation.

After some tense back-and-forth on Twitter over the need for the alarms, the MTA provided me a statement on the emergency exits. The NYPD, it seems, asked the agency re-arm some doors as part of a test. They noted to me:

NYPD is working to combat fare evasion and recently we complied with their request to re-activate alarms at several high traffic stations. This is a test for them to determine the alarms’ effectiveness in deterrence. At the same time, NYC Transit is working with NYPD to evaluate ways to reduce the inconvenience of the alarms for our paying customers and employees, looking into techniques such as enabling timed shutoffs. Nobody wants to hear an alarm going off, but revenue lost to fare evasion is revenue that can’t be used for running and maintaining the system, so we’re working with the NYPD to find the right balance.

Sarah Meyer, Transit’s Chief Customer Officer, also noted that the MTA should have an update on the effectiveness of the alarms “in a couple of weeks.”

The problems New Yorkers had with emergency exits haven’t gone away in the past decade, but the MTA’s priorities have shifted. Right now, the agency wants to fight fare evasion at certain key hot spots, and the gate sirens are one way to do so. The problem, of course, is one of action and reaction. As in the past, when the alarms go off, nothing happens other than lots and lots of noise. Cops or MTA employees (if any are even around) rarely, if ever, investigate, and the alarms serve as a clear signal to anyone nearby that a door that may be locked is now wide open. It’s almost an invite to potential fare evaders.

Outside of the noise pollution, the other problem with these alarms is how they stigmatize certain subway riders. Not everyone can get through NYC’s relatively narrow turnstiles (narrow to fight fare evasion in the first place, I should add). Parents or caretakers pushing strollers and people in wheelchairs who already confront a hostile system and those with large packages or suitcases simply can’t navigate the turnstiles. With stations including fewer and fewer employees, these folks are forced to enter through exits, and if the exits are now alarmed, the simple act of opening the day at the least inconveniences everyone and at the worst draws a crowd. I said this years ago, but the MTA could combat this problem by redesigning turnstiles to include wider, accessible entry gates that can fit wheelchairs and suitcases, as are standard in metro and subway systems throughout the world.

In fact, Meyer told me those gates are on the way as part of the MTA’s push toward more system accessibility, and I’m looking forward to them.

Ben, Alex Elegudin, Andy and I are indeed looking at wider, accessible fare gates. Hoping to bring them to the system soon.

— Sarah Meyer (@SarahMeyerNYC) January 15, 2019

For now, though, we left once again with subway alarms and a familiar debate. Can the NYPD respond to alarms in high-volume stations fast enough for them to serve as a fare evasion deterrent while the MTA responds to requests to open them fast enough to ensure people who need and have properly paid for access get it without causing an ear-splitting ruckus? That’s under review, and we’ll find out soon what end of the emergency exit alarm cycle we’re living through. Will it be the continuation of a quiet one or the dawn of a new, louder, siren-filled era?

February 6, 2019 42 comments

Fare Hikes MTA Politics

The Delayed Fare Hike Edition of ‘That’s No Way To Run a Railroad’

by Benjamin Kabak January 29, 2019

written by Benjamin Kabak on January 29, 2019

A $3 base fare for subway and bus rides were among the fare hike options the MTA decided to push off until February.

When 2018 drew to a close, a level of certainty seemed to surround the MTA. The long-planned L train shutdown loomed four months out; a looming vote on fare hikes seemed to be a mere formality; and with momentum building for a congestion pricing plan, Andy Byford’s Fast Forward plan seemed well on the way to reality.

But then, thanks to Governor Andrew Cuomo, everything changed in the blink of an eye. Cuomo, circumventing the MTA Board, canceled the L train shutdown, sidelined Andy Byford from the project, and then capped off his month by pushing the MTA to delay the planned vote on the fare hikes. It was a flurry of activity orchestrated by the man in charge of the MTA who keeps insisting he isn’t pulling the strings, and it’s created uncertainty — and potentially budgetary pressures — at a time when the MTA can least afford to lose on the money.

The latest chapter in this saga began to unfold last week shortly before the MTA Board meeting that was planned to feature the fare hike vote. Now, as much as New Yorkers don’t want to pay more for what many perceive to be declining subway service, biennial fare hikes have been a feature of the MTA since the structure was approved as part of the 2010 bailout. Every two years, the fares increase by a modest amount, and these hikes, the best tool the MTA has for guaranteed revenue increases, have been met with relatively little resistance as the fare jumps are built into the budget.

But this time, after torpedoing the L train plans, Cuomo started speaking out against fare hikes, as Emma Fitzsimmons reported in The Times last week. Cuomo, expressing “no faith” in what his MTA says, urged the agency to avoid a fare hike. “Tighten your belt,” he said. “Make the place run better.”

In the same piece, former Cuomo aide and current MTA Board member Larry Schwartz said he was examining ways to tie fare hikes amorphously to, as he put it, “performance improvements” or would be otherwise “dead set” on voting for a hike. And then, during Thursday’s meeting, the MTA simply punted. Before any debate or alternative proposals could be presented publicly, the agency tabled all talks. “I’m concerned that we’re making a decision today when we need to be a little slower, a little more thoughtful, and need to consider a few more options,” Cuomo appointee Peter Ward said, moving to delay the discussion. The Board quickly decided to wait on debating fare hike proposals until the next meeting, currently scheduled for Wednesday, February 27.

What was so strange and abrupt about the move was how quickly it came about. The MTA Board had heard only some words from the governor and vague rumors of other proposals. After the vote, Schwartz said his efforts to develop a proposal tied to performance metrics was “in vain” despite internal conversations. To me, this is a good thing, as any attempt to tie guaranteed revenue to better service is one way to put the MTA on a path to a death spiral. If the agency can’t provide better service, the agency can’t raise fares or generate revenue for service at which point its only option is to cut service, thus leading to worse service, less revenue and that dreaded death spiral.

Much like with the L train shutdown shutdown, the “why” of the delayed fare hike vote remains an open-ended question. Dana Rubinstein tried to break it down. I’d urge you to read her entire piece, but I found this excerpt a succinct summary of this mess:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo controls the MTA’s L tunnel plans and the color of its tunnel tiles, but he claims he doesn’t control the MTA. The governor says he has “no faith” in the MTA’s leadership, which he helped appoint. He thinks the MTA doesn’t actually need more than $300 million a year in new fare revenue, because it can just “tighten” its belt and “make the place run better.” But he does think the MTA needs $1 billion a year in new revenue from congestion pricing, which he wants to see imposed on New York City. “It’s really hard to decipher,” said one board member, referring to the general state of MTA politics right now.

It’s well within Cuomo’s rights as the head of the state to attempt to reform the MTA, but running the agency as a fiefdom and operating behind closed doors at a time when the agency needs public support does little but undermine the MTA. With uncertainty clouding the fare hike discussion, it could now be a few months before the MTA can generate the revenue it claims it needs to avoid massive budget shortfalls. If new fare hike proposals are presented next month, the agency may need to hold additional public hearings, wait to vote on the new proposal and then wait to implement these proposals. Instead of a fare increase — and guaranteed revenue come April 1 — the MTA may have to wait to increase fares until July, losing out as much as $90 million it can’t afford to see wiped off the books. Ultimately, too, the public will pay for this politicking through increased hikes or service cuts.

To me, this is backsliding. After years of a commitment to transparency and a big show by Byford to produce a plan to do better, Cuomo has seemingly stepped in to blow everything up, and no one knows why. Did he do it because congestion pricing is now significantly closer to reality and he seems concerned about the political fallout from that move? Is he worried Corey Johnson and other city reps are making noises about re-asserting local control over subways and buses? Did someone actually shake him by his lapels to get him to focus on the L train and, by extension, the MTA?

No one yet knows why Cuomo is suddenly doing what he’s doing. But shortly after the fare hike vote was delayed, Cuomo had an about-face and acknowledged that the MTA would have to implement a rate hike sooner rather than later. It was an odd admission from the governor who had spent weeks slamming the agency for planning to raise fares and one that left observers scratching their heads even harder. Right now, Cuomo’s endgame is opaque and playing out on a day-to-day basis. Where this ends is up in the air, but riders, agency officials and MTA rank-and-file don’t know which way the wind will blow on any given day. And that’s no way to run a railroad.

January 29, 2019 35 comments

MTA Politics

On election eve, a glimpse at #CuomosMTA’s declining ridership and the way forward

by Benjamin Kabak November 5, 2018

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 5, 2018

In a few hours, the polls in New York will open on an election that, at one point, may have been viewed as a referendum on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s leadership of the MTA. For a few months, before the noise from Washington overwhelmed local issues, it seemed as though Cuomo was going to have to take responsibility for the ongoing decline of the subways during his eight-year watch. But after dispatching Cynthia Nixon, who failed to turn the subway crisis into a campaign issue with traction, and drawing Marc Molinaro, a largely ineffectual candidate with a semi-decent plan to reform MTA (while also defunding it, in part), Cuomo will waltz to victory on Tuesday with some vague promises to push through an overtaxed congestion pricing and fight for the subways.

A few weeks ago, on the eve of Cuomo’s primary, I wrote that the governor doesn’t like the subway and isn’t going to save it. That largely holds true tonight as well. There’s a chance Cuomo, who believes he can run for the White House in 2020, will embrace saving the subway as his signature moment and devote the right energy to Andy Byford’s Fast Forward plan, but there’s a better chance he’ll use the region’s infrastructure for a bunch of photo ops while highlighting projects that don’t solve our problems. The area’s best hope is for a Democratic-controlled State Senate to pass congestion pricing and perhaps exercise its oversight powers more often than once every three years. To that end, those in Bay Ridge should consider a vote for Andrew Gounardes, and those of us who live in former IDC districts should consider a vote for the challengers. Otherwise, #FlipYourBallot and vote YES on proposition 3 to impose modest term limits for Community Boards and hope for the best for transit.

With that said, it’s worth looking at the state of subway ridership on the eve of Gov. Cuomo’s second reelection effort. As I hinted at a few weeks ago, it’s not a pretty picture as ridership has essentially started to crater. After months of a steady decline, August saw a steep dip as average weekday subway ridership fell to just over 5 million riders a day, a drop of 2.5% from 2017, and combined weekend ridership fell by nearly 9%, the steepest year-over-year decline in decades.

These trend lines are heading in the wrong direction.

With the city’s economy continuing to add jobs, it seems that riders are fleeing the system and turning to other modes of travel for their commutes. The factors I explored a month ago are still at play, but this nosedive in August raises some serious red flags. Even during the slow summer months, when the MTA anticipates a dip, ridership was nearly 2 percent below projections (and the resultant farebox revenue missed its target as well). As ridership declines, the MTA’s finances grow strained, and city streets grow more crowded from the congestion caused by erstwhile subway riders resorting to for-hire vehicles. We head further toward that downward death spiral.

It’s not quite clear what anyone’s plan for this alarming modeshift may be. Cuomo is talking about congestion pricing which could push some folks back to the subways, and the MTA itself is touting Fast Forward. The latter though is a long-term solution with fewer short-term gains, and it’s not clear the powers-that-be are picking up on the problem. Make no mistake about it: A significant mode-shift away from transit to less sustainable modes of travel is a problem for the city’s productivity and environment, and a culture shift away from traveling anywhere, especially on the weekends, is a problem for the vibrancy of New York City. Without the subways, the city can’t function, and right now, month by month, we inch closer to that breaking point.

I worry about a disengaged Andrew Cuomo after the election when the subways aren’t fixed but no one is running against him on the issue. Will he still care or will we be stuck with what we have until he’s out of office? Photo ops won’t be enough to save the subways or our congested streets, and the transit death spiral could lock the entire region in its sour embrace sooner than we’d all like to contemplate.

November 5, 2018 7 comments

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