Buses

Web-based real-time bus tracking system now live

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 14, 2010

A screenshot of the arrival site for the new MTA BusTime initiative.

Updated (6:32 p.m.): The bus system in New York City suffers from a reliability problem. Because buses don’t adhere to the schedule and are at the whims of street traffic, riders never know with much certainty when the next bus is going to show up. We don’t know if it’s better to wait for the bus or to start walking, and we don’t know how well traffic is moving down the road.

Starting today, a new MTA pilot should improve that system. For the first time, city bus riders can now track the exact location of buses as they meander through Midtown. Called MTA BusTime and launched in conjunction with Clever Devices, the new service GPS-based service allows for real-time, web-based tracking of buses along the M16 and M34 routes. It is available at the MTA BusTime website, and Transit says the new pilot is “aimed at giving riders a quick and easy means of determining approximately when the next bus will arrive at a specific stop.” The information will be available online, via email and via text message.

“Why rush to the bus stop when you can finish your cup of coffee or stop and grab a newspaper? Now we’re providing our customers with the information they need to make informed decisions about their travel before they get to the bus stop,” Transit President Thomas Prendergast said in a statement. “Along with the new train arrival screens that are being activated in subways stations around the City, MTA BusTime is another example of how we are developing new ways to give customers information they can use.”

A screenshot of the MTA BusTime map showing the real-time location of M16 and M34 buses.

The system, explains Transit, uses GPS devices that report bus location data. In real time, the BusTime will show where buses are either on a map, which doesn’t appear to show the buses right now will show the buses if you click on the “ROUTE” button and then select the bus or buses you want to see, or on a mobile-optimized timesheet page. “Using this information,” Transit says, “customers will know when a bus is estimated to arrive at a particular stop, even if they are still at the office, shopping, or dining.”

It’s hard to stress how much of a game-changing this app could be for the city’s buses. All of a sudden, I know that, in 13 minutes from when I wrote this, an eastbound M16 is going to stop at 34th St. and 3rd Ave. I can time when to leave my house; I can decide if I want to take the bus or wait; I can determine the best way to make the bus work for me. It is empowering the rider, and if Transit can introduce the pilot on a wider scheme, bus ridership should shoot up in response.

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MTA Politics

Walder, a subway rider, wants to serve full term

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 14, 2010

Turnover and instability at the top of any large business does not lead to forward progress, and in recent years, nowhere has this been more evident than at the MTA. In fact, since I’ve started Second Ave. Sagas, the authority has gone through a variety of people at the top, but current CEO and Chairman Jay Walder says he plans to serve out his term if the next governor is willing to have him.

The revolving door began in late 2006. Even though it was clear that Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer would appoint his own people to head the MTA, outgoing Governor George Pataki reappointed Peter Kalikow as the MTA Chairman to maintain continuity. Once Spitzer named Elliot Sander as the MTA CEO and Executive Director, Kalikow vowed to leave when his own replacement was named, and on Oct. 22, 2007, Dale Hemmerdinger took over as chair. This two-headed management structure did not seem to work, and the pair went down with the MTA’s fiscal ship.

In mid-2009, as Albany prepared to pass a funding plan to shore up the authority’s finances, the state legislature required a reorganization at the top. The CEO and Chairman positions were consolidated into one, and Gov. Davi Paterson named Jay Walder as the new head of the MTA. He would be the third MTA chairman in as many years, and he inherited an authority suffering from managerial instability.

Yesterday, while speaking at the Crain’s New York business breakfast, Walder pledged to finish his six-year term, provided the state’s next governor wants to keep him. “I’d like to stay, I hope to stay, and I expect I’ll stay,” he said.

Walder, who said that he has “no conversation with any candidate,” is wisely staying out of electoral politics. If, as anticipated, Andrew Cuomo wins, I’ve heard that Walder will keep his job. Carl Paladino, on the other hand, has pledged to abolish the MTA. That can’t inspire feelings of job security among the executives at the authority.

I’ve wondered about the MTA’s seemingly arm’s-length approach to electoral politics and its interactions with Albany. The authority doesn’t respond to factually-shaky attacks that legislatures make against it, and the agency doesn’t lobby much. As Kat Stoeffel of The Observer reported, Walder said “that the MTA will ‘always rely on public support,’ but the questions of where to lay the tax burden are outside his job description. Rather, his aim is to present a better product to Albany so ‘we can look Albany in the eye and say we’re using every dollar wisely.'”

By and large, Walder seems to get it. He talked yesterday about his rocky relationship with labor but stressed how he’s making strides in modernizing the system. He cited the countdown clocks, the upcoming wireless service project and the internal spending cuts as signs that he’s committed to reforming the MTA and improving transit in the city.

He addressed too the public skepticism directed toward the MTA:

“I still ride our system every single day. In fact, since last week marked the end of my first year here, I took a look and found that I’ve swiped my MetroCard almost 900 times this year. Yes, I use the system for work – it’s my job to know what’s going on. But really I use it for the same reason everyone else does –- because it’s the best way to get around this region. And so I understand how fundamental the transit system is to New York, and I also understand the frustration people have with the system. The MTA will always be an easy target for criticism. It’s especially easy to look in the rearview mirror and take shots at the MTA. But if you stop and look at what’s happening right now, you will see that today the MTA is pointed in the right direction.”

Of course, actions speak louder than words, but Walder’s actions have, by and large, been a reflection of his words. He may not be perfect, but he’s made more strides than any chair in recent times while bringing some stability to the organization. The next governor would be wise to keep him on board.

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ARC TunnelAsides

A private solution for ARC Tunnel funding woes?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 14, 2010

Despite the fact that neither New Jersey nor the Feds have released an audited update of the ARC Tunnel cost overuns, Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Garden State Democrat, is trying to secure a private partnership to help get the tunnel back on track. As Bloomberg News reported, Lautenberg says he has reached to a “major New York City-based finance firm” in an effort save the ARC Tunnel. Lautenberg has also asked the feds to throw in more money for this vital rail infrastructure upgrade and has asked Port Authority to contribute more as well.

Meanwhile, New York’s own governor has finally broken his silence on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to scrape the ARC Tunnel. “I just cannot be critical of the governor of New Jersey if he can save nearly $3 billion that New Jersey would be putting into that one program and use it for other issues statewide. I cannot quarrel with his decision,” he said during a WOR-AM radio spot yesterday. Casting a skeptical eye on Lautenberg’s financing ideas, David Paterson said he believed that the costs are “too great for private financing.” If private investors couldn’t, he reasoned, save St. Vincent’s hospital, how can they fund a tunnel that could need between $2-$5 billion more than expected?

New York State, of course, stands to benefit from the ARC Tunnel but, outside of money giving through Port Authority, has yet to make a significant contribution to this project. The outgoing governor, though, said the Empire State could not lend a hand. “There’s going to have to be redress because the one thing that can save overcrowding right now is expansion of the railways,” he said. “If I had the resources to do it, I would say it would be valuable enough to invest in this project.”

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BusesMTA

SBS reaction as a microcosm for the MTA

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 14, 2010

The Select Bus Service along 1st and 2nd Avenues has been in place for all four days, and already, East Siders are calling it a failure. Egged on by a media that seems to be rooting for failure, bus commuters along these two avenues have shown no patience for the new bus service. “This is awful,” Sarah Schneider said to Pete Donohue of the Daily News as she waited for the bus on Tuesday.

From the get-go, press coverage of the Select Bus Service has been, as I explored earlier this week, highly critical. Instead of examining the benefits of the new bus service, the press has focused only on the hiccups, and the public has picked up on the complaints as well. Someone had to wait a few extra minutes for a bus? They get a quote in the paper. Someone doesn’t understand how to pay before boarding? They get a quote in the paper. Someone thinks Select Bus Service is just too darn complicated? They get a quote in the paper.

Eventually, something has to give, and Mayor Bloomberg this week has lashed out at the media. “I’m sure there’s going to be confusion this morning,” he said to reporters. “I’m sure you’ll write a big exposé that it’s a total failure, and six months from now, you will never write the story that it’s the success that it’s going to be.”

The MTA, who went through similar growing pains before the Select Bus Service in the Bronx became a success, is going to wait out the storm. “There’s much room for improvement,” Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said on Tuesday. “This is our first full day of weekday service. We’re going to keep monitoring and adjusting this service every day until we bring it up to the level that we expect and our customers expect.”

There is but one problem though: The reaction to the Select Bus Service isn’t just your typical response to change from New Yorkers who like their routines. Rather, it is a reaction to the MTA today. The beleaguered authority has lost so much public credibility that it can’t just tell people it’s improving bus service; it has to show them instead. But when New Yorkers grow so apathetic toward transit, showing gets that much tougher.

The idea of Select Bus Service in New York City is not a new one. The plans for this bus network grew out of a series of meetings between transit advocates and local politicians in the early 2000s, and over a series of MTA heads and DOT commissioners, the current Select Bus Service plans were developed. This isn’t, as one critic on Second Ave. Sagas charged, something Jay Walder created.

Meanwhile, the East Side bus routes aren’t the first to enjoy the SBS upgrades. The Bx12 has been a part of the Select Bus Service pilot since mid-2008, and after lane enforcement issues and initial difficulties with the pre-boarding fare payment system, the SBS route has drastically improved bus service. Manhattanites should take a lesson, but they don’t. They didn’t attend the numerous planning meetings and community open houses; they didn’t absorb the news coverage of the bus changes; they didn’t listen to their elected politicians who openly championed improved bus service.

For the MTA, this is but another in a long line of public examples of distrust. When Jay Walder says he won’t cut service again before his term is out in 2015, no one believes him even though the MTA’s 2010 service cuts were the first in a generation. When the authority talks about bringing technology online or replacing the MetroCard, most people question the rationale for these decisions. If it isn’t broke, if the bus moves very slowly but still moves, why change a good thing?

The media of course is willing to pick up on it. It’s far more interesting to find the people who want to complain than those who noticed a ride to work on the M15 that was 20 minutes faster today than it was a week ago. Yet, the MTA hasn’t earned public trust, and the customers doubt this seemingly top-heavy authority can deliver the goods. Until the agency starts showing instead of telling, it will, for better or worse, be left with a credibility gap perpetuated by politicians looking for brownie points and reporters looking to move copies of the paper. That’s life in the age of MTA skepticism.

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AsidesService Cuts

Walder: No more service cuts on my watch

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder plans to serve out his full six-year term as the head of the beleaguered transit authority, and this morning, he vowed that the MTA would not cut train and bus service again on his watch. “I think we’ve heard the voice of the people,” he said. “Our intent is not to cut those services any further.” While speaking at a Crain’s New York Business breakfast this morning, Walder said he could not promise the same when it comes to fare hikes. Despite recent efforts to close a substantial budget gap, the MTA is slated to raise fares again in 2013, and Walder plans to adhere to that schedule. I’ll have more on Walder’s comments at the breakfast later.

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Buses

Video of the Day: Prepping for Select Bus Service

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

As East Side bus riders adjust to the ins and outs of Select Bus Service, the MTA has released a time-lapse video of the preparation that goes into this new service. The new video shows how workers readied and wrapped Bus 1268 for
Select Bus Service while the vehicle was laid up at the 126th St. Bus Depot. Say what you will about Select Bus Service — and plenty of people already are — but the wrapping the blue flashing lights certainly give these buses the look of something new and better.

In other SBS-related news, Pete Donohue from the Daily News took the new service for a spin. Although his coverage contains some of the negativity from the riders against which I railed earlier in the week, he presents a balanced assessment of the service, at least in the early goings. The MTA admitted to him that the service needs some fine-tuning, and Donohue found that the dedicated lanes were often blocked by other vehicles. The city must ramp up enforcement to solve those problems before camera enforcement begins next month.

Still, the MTA recognizes that the agency has work to do yet. “There’s much room for improvement,” Transit Charles Seaton said to Donohue. “This is our first full day of weekday service. We’re going to keep monitoring and adjusting this service every day until we bring it up to the level that we expect and our customers expect.”

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MTA Politics

Paladino: MTA ‘needs to be abolished’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

When it comes to transit policy, Carl Paladino is the gift that keeps on giving. Just one week after threatening to take apart the MTA piece by piece, the Republican nominee for New York State governor said that he wants to flat-out abolish the MTA. His reasons, of course, make no sense.

As Kenneth Lovett of the Daily News relates, Paladino wants to, in the words of the News reporter, “make the agency a state department that answers directly to the governor.” Of course, Paladino conveniently forgets that the governor is responsible for appointing the MTA head and that the authority already answers to the state assembly’s oversight committee.

The best parts though are Paladino’s direct quotes. He said:

“The bottom line is the MTA as we know it today needs to be abolished so the voters can demand that someone can be held accountable for the rampant waste in the system and the taxes and rider fees that feed the bureaucratic beast…

“The MTA is horribly mismanaged and it’s a sinkhole of money. It’s among the least transparent entities in the world and was even found to have kept two separate sets of books. New Yorkers are paying more each year getting less in service.”

Here, Paladino is flat-out lying. As I’ve documented in the past, the 2003 claim by then-Comptroller and now-convicted felon Alan Hevesi that the MTA kept two sets of books was disproved in federal court. Today, the MTA is not among the least transparent authorities in the country but rather among the most transparent. Its budget documents are on full display for anyone to see. Paladino, apparently, has never bothered to look for the information.

Meanwhile, he’s not wrong to say that the authority historically has been a sinkhole of money, but lately, those in charge have reversed that trend. On Jay Walder’s watch, the MTA has cut $730 million in annual expenses and is working to keep costs under control. New Yorkers do pay more for less service, but that’s because Paladino’s GOP predecessors — and in particular, Rudy Giuiliani and George Pataki — foisted billions of dollars of debt onto the MTA in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In the end, Paladino explained his rationale in a way that actually makes some sense. “Mayors, governors and legislators want to be able to rail against the MTA,” he said, “but they really want to be insulated against the decisions that they make so the voters can’t blame them for increasing fares and services cuts.”

As Cap’n Transit wrote back in 2008, that’s exactly why the MTA should be abolished. If the voters knew how badly state officials were screwing over transit and how responsible these officials are for fare hikes and service cuts, perhaps we would see a better approach to transit policy.

But Paladino’s original reasons for abolishing the MTA simply do not hold up to scrutiny. The agency is not horribly mismanaged right now, and it’s quite transparent. There’s still a long road toward a lean structure at the authority, but it’s finally on the right track. Turning it into another subsidiary of the New York State Department of Transportation, as Paladino seems to suggest, would be a considerable setback. The MTA as we knew it five years ago needed to be abolished, and that’s the process we’re seeing unfold today.

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Transit Labor

Once more unto the labor breach

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 13, 2010

When postcards such as this one hit the streets, it's little surprise Jay Walder and labor aren't getting along.

Back in mid-August at the heigh of vacation season, the TWU issued a postcard condemning Jay Walder for taking a vacation. The MTA CEO and Chair had dared to decamp to his house in France, purchased with money earned while he worked for Transport for London and the consulting firm McKinsey. While TWU workers were being laid off, Walder was taking his time off, and this was cause for consternation. TWU president John Samuelsen even said that Walder was “an elitist rich guy totally out of touch with his workers and New York City transit riders.”

Now, as Jay Walder marks his first year in office and reflects back on the tough choices he’s had to make, labor is at the forefront of his regrets. He may have trimmed nearly $730 million from the authority’s annual rolls, but his public relations with the MTA’s labor unions, he told a York College crowd, have been far from perfect. “The biggest disappointment that I’ve had in one year at the MTA,” Walder said, “has been the inability to be able to partner with our labor unions.”

NY1’s John Mancini had more:

Walder told a York College audience that talks to negotiate new work rules and reduced benefits for new employees broke down. That’s no surprise. The folks he wants to partner with include John Samuelsen, head of the the city’s largest transit union, who has mocked him repeatedly as an out-of-touch rich guy.

“Jay Walder’s idea of a partnership is a one-way street in his direction,” Samuelsen said in a recent statement. “For Jay, it’s always about cutting transit workers’ pay and benefits, and destroying conditions of labor negotiated over 75 years.”

With nearly a thousand layoffs, it’s been a rough year for labor relations at the MTA. And in recent days, management has stepped up its call for union concessions. When the MTA board voted this week to hike fares, they heard a new warning. “We are faced with union contracts now that are truly onerous,” said MTA Vice Chairman Andrew Saul. “We have antiquated work rules, which makes it hard for us to modernize the system. We have pension costs and benefits that are just really going out of control here.”

It has indeed been a rough year for Walder and the unions, but the TWU, the city’s largest union, isn’t having an easy go of it either. Earlier this summer, in a contentious vote, the TWU chose to give a full benefits package to laid-off workers. Current union members may donate $5 a week to fund the health insurance coverage, and as the measure passed by a margin of just 64 votes, some current members resent the payouts.

“There are a lot of people who feel that it’s unjustified,” Ron Shpiller, a shop steward, said in August. “A lot of people feel it was not presented properly…We can’t afford to pay for our own children, but we’re going to pay for people we don’t really know.”

At the time, John Samuelsen dismissed these dissenters as a threat to union solidarity, but since August, the dissent has grown louder. As Ari Paul of The Chief-Ledger reported last week, the union’s Secretary-Treasurer and Samuelsen are now at odds. The dispute is a long and winding one involving two TWU staffers, but the animosity stems from the health care vote.

Meanwhile, to pile on even more, David Brooks in The Times blames escalating pension and benefits costs for the failure of the ARC Tunnel. “States across the nation will be paralyzed for the rest of our lives because they face unfunded pension obligations that, if counted accurately, amount to $2 trillion — or $87,000 per plan participan,” he says. “All in all, governments can’t promote future prosperity because they are strangling on their own self-indulgence.”

Brooks, never one to miss the opportunity, fingers Democrats as the culprits. The party of the left is too cozy with labor, he says, but in New York City, party affiliation matters little when it comes to union support. Everyone is both guilty and innocent.

What the future holds for these rocky relationships is anyone’s guess. Historically, the labor movement has been a boon for the American workforce as we now enjoy weekends, paid time off, sick leave, maternity leave and a variety of other benefits. But lately, pension and benefit costs have left everyone scrambling, and Walder has been slammed by the pushback from his own offensive. The TWU’s contract is up in 2012, one year before the MTA’s next scheduled fare hike. I can only imagine the state of this relationship then.

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MTA Technology

Video of the Day: Countdown clocks going up

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 12, 2010

The MTA, via its official YouTube channel, posted the above video this afternoon. As the countdown clock rollout along the A Division nears its mid-2011 completion, the authority has installed nearly 100 clocks since October 2009. Considering how long it took to get the PA/CIS pilot from the L train to the IRT line, the rate of installation has increased markedly recently.

I’ve always been a big supporter of the countdown clocks because they eliminate a source of frustration. Instead of peering endlessly into dark tunnels while checking our watches every five minutes, straphangers waiting for their trains can rest peacefully knowing that the clock is accurate and that the train will soon be arriving. It takes the surprise of waiting, and it eliminates the fear of a delayed commute. It’s more comforting to know that you’re going to be on time. While staring into a tunnel is a time-honored New York City subway tradition, it’s one we’re not going to miss.

The video isn’t anything spectacular. Mostly, it tells us what we already know. But I appreciate the time-lapse photography of a work crew setting up a new countdown clock. Hopefully, technological innovation underground will continue for the foreseeable future.

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ARC Tunnel

How the ARC Tunnel was saved — for two weeks

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on October 12, 2010

The deep cavern in Manhattan is one of Governor Christie's gripes with the ARC Tunnel. (Via ARCTunnel.com)

Since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced in mid-September that he would be suspending work on the trans-Hudson rail crossing we know as the ARC Tunnel, the staff of The Star-Ledger has been all over this story. They were the first to report on the suspension and have numerous sources within the Christie Administration keeping them abreast of the latest developments. Their latest piece — a glimpse inside the negotiations with the feds that resulted in a two-week reprieve for the project — might just be their best.

The gist of their piece is, as the headline suggests, the 36 hours that saved the ARC Tunnel. They track Christie’s decision to make the announcement to scrap the tunnel after he made a few key political appearances in Iowa and the timing of the announcement that conveniently coincided with testimony by Bret Schundler on a mistake that cost New Jersey hundreds of millions of federal education dollars. Christie, they say, was intent on scraping the ARC Tunnel as early as June but acted recently when it became politically prudent to do so. They write:

Christie — riding a wave of national popularity built on the combination of his government-cutting bona fides and his tough-guy-from-Jersey image — was already leaning toward killing the project as far back as June, say those close to him. Last month, in a decision that startled transportation advocates and Washington, Christie abruptly suspended the project after more than half a billion dollars had already been spent. But it was not until last week that he made the final decision to cancel.

The actual timing of the governor’s final decision caught many off guard — including those in Washington. And it came as the governor was suffering through a public flogging at the hands of one of his own — the man he had chosen to lead his push to reform education. Bret Schundler had been fired in August in a dispute over a failed $400 million federal grant.

Thursday morning, Schundler was telling the Senate under oath that the governor lost the federal funding because of a vendetta against the state’s leading teachers union. And as Schundler’s testimony was reaching toward its third hour in a Statehouse committee room, the governor’s office sent out a news alert, summoning reporters for an announcement. The topic was not specified, but it was quickly learned that Christie was killing the ARC tunnel.

Christie denied he timed his announcement to steal Schundler’s thunder, but political observers said it couldn’t have been mere coincidence since less than 24 hours earlier the governor had said he didn’t know when he would have enough information to make his decision.

At first, aides to Ray LaHood, the nation’s Secretary of Transportation, wanted to attack Christie for this short-sighted decision, but LaHood went with diplomacy instead. The government believes that Christie’s claims of $5 billion in cost overruns are both wrong and intentionally misleading, but the two were able to work together to reach a detente. The feds would address some of Christie’s legitimate gripes with the project — its need for a new station deep under 34th St. that doesn’t offer a quick and easy to connection to Amtrak — and Christie would be open to their suggestions.

Still, the problem remains one of costs. “We have to work on the money,” Christie said as his meeting with LaHood ended, and the costs are still an issue. The governor still has the tunnel is “not financially viable” and would prefer to use that money — and not higher gas taxes — to save the state’s sinking Transportation Trust Fund. In this instance, though, killing two birds with one stone would be committing mobility murder.

So now, we wait. In ten days, Christie and LaHood will come together to determine the fate of a project the region needs and, with it, billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Still, I’m not going to hold my breath. This one feels a little less optimistic than it should.

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