Queens

New raised storm grates earn architectural praise

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 16, 2010

The new raised storm grates have earned aesthetic praise while keeping the subways flood-free. (Photo courtesy of the MTA on Facebook)

When an August 2007 rain storm completely flooded the New York City subway system, the MTA recognized a problem at street level. Because ventilation grates were flush with the sidewalk and fed directly into subway stations that weren’t very deep underground, numerous stations – particularly in Queens – were completely overrun with water.

To solve this problem, the authority proposed in late 2008 a reconceptualized subway grate that would also double as street furniture. By July of 2009, the $31 million flood-prevention plan was fully in place with grates along Sutphin and Queens Boulevards among other areas susceptible to flooding.

This week, the city’s Center for Architecture awarded Rogers Marvel Architects and di Domenico + Partners an Urban Design Merit Award for their work with the MTA’s flood mitigation streetscape plans. This award came as part of the juried prizes handed out each year at the American Institute of Architecture’s design awards luncheon. The flood mitigation pieces wil also be a part of an exhibit at the Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place) now on display through July 3, 2010.

This project showed tremendous innovation and thought on behalf the MTA and then-CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander. I’m glad to see it earning some recognition from the design community. For more pictures of the raised grates, check out this Facebook album.

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Moynihan Station

Underneath 33rd: Transit plans for 15 Penn Plaza

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 16, 2010

A diagram from the Draft Environmental Impact Statement shows some of Vornado’s transit improements plans for the 33rd St. area. (15 Penn Plaza – DEIS)

In writing about shuttered subway passageways lost to time yesterday, I mentioned briefly Vornado’s plans to reactivate the Gimbel’s passageway between 6th and 7th Avenues underneath 33rd St. The proposal is part of the real estate company’s 15 Penn Plaza project that would see a 1200-foot mixed-use building replace replace the Hotel Pennsylvania, and as part of their plans, Vornado has proposed sweeping transit improvements that would unite subway lines in the Penn Station area.

Last night, at a presentation in front of Community Board 5 on 15 Penn Plaza, the MTA had an opportunity to present and discuss the transit improvements. Bob Paley, director of transit-oriented development at the MTA, spoke at the meeting as he highlighted this “excellent example of transit oriented development.” It is, he explained, a part of the city’s plans to bring Moynihan Station from an idea to reality.

“The redevelopment of the Hotel Pennsylvania site,” Paley said, “offers the ability to move ahead with some of the most critical aspects of the work that needs to be done [for Moynihan Station] – including the enlargement, reconstruction and reopening of the Gimbel’s Passageway and the improvement of specific platform locations, vertical escalation, and subway entrances that are within or adjacent to this full block property.”

A rendering of a proposed entrance to the IRT along 33rd St. off of 7th Ave. (Click to enlarge)

The main thrust of the improvements, according to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, would involve reactivated that old Gimbel’s passageway underneath 33rd St. “The renovated passageway would be widened to accommodate pedestrian flows between Penn Station/the Seventh Avenue subway lines and the Sixth Avenue subway lines and the Port Authority Trans Hudson station, improving pedestrian circulation on the street- level sidewalks,” the document says. “The passageway would provide an alternative to pedestrians traveling along the 33rd Street corridor.”

The Post’s Steve Cuozzo discusses how the old passageway would be completely overhauled. Instead of a nine-foot wide, dimly-lit tunnel replete with sketchy characters, the new tunnel would be 16 feet wide and would resemble the underground concourses at Rockefeller Center. The MTA estimates that, in good weather, 10-14,000 people per day would make use of the connection. Although Cuozzo claims that the passageway would provide a free transfer between the IRT at 34th and 7th Ave. and the IND/BMT stop at Herald Square, the DEIS image, shown above, features fare control areas at either end. Still, simply uniting the two stations underground would make walking through a highly congested area much easier.

Vornado, working with the MTA and PATH, has proposed a slew of other improvements to meet the increased transit demands of their massive building – the third highest in the city if it is to see the light of day. These include:

  • Widening the stair from the Seventh Avenue southbound local platform to the 32nd Street underpass;
  • Building a new stairway to the center platform from the 32nd Street/Seventh Avenue underpass;
  • Widening the Seventh Avenue northbound local platform between West 32nd and West 33rd Streets by six feet;
  • Building new subway entrances at Seventh Avenue and West 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue and West 33rd Street, each of which would include a 10-foot-wide set of stairs through the proposed building;
  • Constructing a new street elevator at the Seventh Avenue and West 33rd Street entrance;
  • Widening the Sixth Avenue and West 32nd Street PATH entrance stairs by 10 feet, and adding one escalator;
  • Constructing one escalator at the Sixth Avenue and West 33rd Street subway entrance;
  • Constructing a 10-foot staircase from the PATH to the B, D, F, and V platform near West 32nd Street;
  • Constructing a 15-foot staircase from the PATH to the B, D, F, and V platform near West 33rd Street; and
  • Reconfiguring the fare control area to accommodate new stairs from the PATH to the B, D, F, and V platforms.

This plan, says the MTA, is estimated to cost approximately $150 million, and Vornado has shown a complete willingness to fund these upgrades. “The public benefit of funding from a private partner willing to take on the significant planning and construction work to implement these improvements is even more critical in today’s environment of limited capital funding than it was when these discussions began several years ago,” Paley said.

Of course, it looks good on paper, but it’s future is no sure thing. Vornado says it could have the building open in four and a half years, and the DEIS claims a completion date in 2014. Cuozzo reports, however, that the company won’t start construction until it “pre-signs at least one large office tenant – which could take years.” The company remains committed to gaining approval now.

In a sense, these improvements would create a hub similar to those at Times Square and Fulton St. for transit in an area exceedingly difficult to navigate. PATH access would be improved, and the Penn Station area catacombs would begin to clear up. It is a prime example of transit-oriented development and a public-private partnership that sees much-needed transit upgrades funded by a developer with money that plans to increase transit demand. It just makes sense.

“It is for those reasons,” Paley said last night, “that the MTA strongly supports this project – both the subway and transit improvements and the new tower that will rise above them. Although we can’t bring back the old Penn Station, through a series of very significant improvements such as those proposed as part of this development, we will be able to bring back the high level of convenience and amenity that the public deserves.”

Update (2:10 p.m.): For what it’s worth, Community Board 5 last night voted 36-1 against Vornado’s plan for 15 Penn Plaza. Eliot Brown offers some insight into the vote:

Many community board members seemed almost offended that Vornado had requested both an air rights bonus for its transit improvements and an additional increase in the density beyond what they would normally be allowed (one called it “double dipping”). Still, community boards often vote against projects, and some board members did acknowledge that this was a good space for a tall building.

While the Community Board asked Vornado to come back when it had a tenant in place, the reality is that this vote doesn’t matter. The City Council will eventually decide whether or not to approve this project, and odds are good that they will give it the OK. Stay tuned.

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QueensService Cuts

Permanent G train service cut coming Monday

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 15, 2010

By and large, the service cuts the MTA must enact this summer will not go into effect until June 27, but for riders along the oft-neglected G train, the service cuts start this Monday. According to amNew York’s Heather Haddon, because of repairs to the Queens Boulevard line, Transit will begin to terminate the G at Court Square at all times starting on April 19 at 11 p.m.

Currently, the G train runs from Church Ave. in Kensington, Brooklyn, to Forest Hills from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. and on weekends, but that route is one that is more in name only than in reality. Due to track work, the G train saw Forest Hills during just three weekends in all of 2009, and this year, we’ve witnessed much of the same weekend service reductions.

For New Yorkers, this is but the first of many service cuts, but this one comes with a tradeoff. Overall, 201,000 straphangers along the Queens Boulevard line will find themselves waiting longer and making an extra connection at Court Square to reach their ultimate destinations. According to MTA documents (PDF here), 11,000 riders will have longer weekday evening and late-night rides and 105,000 riders on Saturday and 85,000 riders on Sunday will have increased travel times. Transit, though, will run three additional evening G trains during the weeknight peak times to provide more frequent service along the rest of the IND Crosstown line.

And so it begins.

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MTA EconomicsTransit Labor

Walder: Labor unions must make concessions too

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 15, 2010

When Jay Walder arrived at the MTA from England last fall, he was supposed to take the reins of an organization that had finally secured some semblance of financial stability. Although New York State had eschewed smarter congestion fee or bridge toll plans, Albany had delivered a comprehensive package of fees and taxes that, while not perfect, should have provided the MTA with enough money to cover its operating deficit.

As with all things these days out of Albany, however, the gold turned to dust. First, Albany took over $140 million from the MTA’s coffers; then, the state taxation calculations were off by over $300 million; and then a still-weak economy cost the MTA millions in missed real estate tax revenue. It was the perfect storm of fiscal problems, and it has led to a deficit of nearly $800 million for the authority this year.

With Walder at the helm, the MTA has tried to make every dollar count, as he is so fond of saying. Since December, when the scope of the deficit has become clear, the authority has instituted on sweeping package of service cuts that will eliminate buses and trains, reduce the in-station employee headcount and lead to longer and more crowded off-peak commutes. Still, that package resulted in savings of just under $400 million with another $350 million gap looming.

To close that gap, the MTA has searched high and low for inefficiencies. The authority has eliminated nearly $50 million in managerial staffing positions, cut 141 capital improvement projects for a savings of $40 million and renegotiated $17 million in contractor savings. Still, the gap is significant, and before pursuing a politically risky fare hike, the MTA is looking for more internal savings.

Today, Jay Walder makes his case for union sacrificies in the pages of The Post. He writes:

As you can see, I won’t shy away from the tough decisions that are needed to drive down costs at the MTA. We are doing our part, but $800 million is a massive shortfall. If we are to succeed, our labor unions must contribute to the solution.

Before I arrived at the MTA, an arbitrator awarded our largest union 11 percent raises over three years. Our employees work extremely hard and deserve to be well compensated – but that compensation comes with the responsibility to maximize productivity and eliminate waste. The reality is that our labor force costs taxpayers far too much. With families and businesses struggling across the state, it’s time for labor to address outdated work rules, limited employee availability and rising pension and medical costs.

Deficit reduction wasn’t what I had in mind when I accepted this job. But I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make long-overdue changes at the MTA. By creating a leaner, more efficient organization, we can restore the MTA’s credibility and position ourselves to make great improvements to our system when the economy recovers.

Walder ends his piece on an upbeat note, but it it was encased in an appeal to politics as well. “Here in New York, where transit is more fundamental to our lives than anywhere else,” he says, “it’s something everyone should be rooting for.”

The MTA CEO and Chairman is, of course, striking the right note, but the unions won’t give in without a fight. In a sense, they’re the last holdouts. The riders are losing service from an organization that is a service providers; employees have been laid off; projects delayed; contracts renegotiated. It’s time for the unions to explore how they can help the MTA save money before we all lose our healthy and vital transit network.

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Subway History

Remembering subway passageways lost to time

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 15, 2010

A glimpse of a long-shuttered pedestrian tunnel underneath 6th Ave. (Photo by flickr user newpennstation)

Everyday, thousands of New Yorkers destined for Midtown exit the 34th St./Herald Square station and walk north along Sixth Avenue. Most do not realize it, but they are tracking the path of an underground complex that ranges north from 35th to 40th Sts. and connects the Herald Square subway station to the 42nd St./Bryant Park stop. That passageway, closed for nearly 20 years, is just one of the many secrets the subway system hides right before our eyes.

This passageway dates from the construction of the IND, and it originally opened, as the Municipal Arts Society recounted, in 1940. A piece from the May 4 New Yorker that year introduced the city to the tunnel as a work in progress:

It’s a passageway running from Thirty-fifth Street to Fortieth, connecting with both the Thirty-fourth and Forty-second Street stations. The idea is that it will relieve congestion at these points by distributing passengers over a greater area. If you add the length of the station platforms to the length of the underpass, you have something impressive – a stretch of more than nine blocks, from Thirty-third Street to north of Forty-second. There will be a catch to using this as a summer promenade, however. There will be turnstiles at the ends of both station platforms, so it will cost ten cents to make the entire distance. The arrangement should nevertheless be a boon to adventurous strollers in the summer of 1941…At the south end, once you’re through the turnstile, you will be able to wander on indefinitely underground: through territory of the BMT, the Hudson & Manhattan terminal, Saks-Thirty-fourth Street, Gimbel’s, the Pennsylvania Station – a whole world in itself.

For years, the passageway served as a short cut away from the crowds on 6th Ave., but as the subway system fell into ruin, so too did these less-than-secure areas underground. Eventually by the 1980s and early 1990s, homeless people outnumbered commuters, and long, dark passageways were hallmarks of the unsafe subways. Junkies and pushers sprung up in area that bred graffiti and saw nary a cop – or station agent – patrolling the grounds.

Resembling what we might see in a movie today, these tunnels were ominous, and in 1991, after years of police complaints, disaster struck in the form of a horrific rape. A 22-year-old woman from New Jersey was sexually assaulted in that 6th Ave. tunnel on a weekday afternoon in March, and her attacker used construction equipment to shield the crime. The MTA’s reaction was swift. They barricaded that long tunnel and offered a mea culpa. The authority had kept open the passageway despite police requests because they feared a public outcry from homeless advocates. The crime though tipped the balance.

A now-shuttered passageway between 7th and 8th Aves. at 14th St. (Photo via NYCSubway.org)

That now-forgotten tunnel under 6th Ave. wasn’t the only casualty of an unsafe and unpatrolled system. Throughout the system, the MTA shuttered various isolated crossovers and passageways that many deemed to be unsafe. “Although it may be inconvenient for some people to walk the long way around,” Beverly Dolinsky, then of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Council, said, “I think most riders won’t mind because of the increased feeling of safety.”

Included in those closings were a walkway outside of fare control that connected the IRT stop at 14th St. and 7th Ave. with the IND station at 14th and 8th; free connections between the uptown and downtown platforms at 28th St. along the 6 and 23rd St. on the R; various staircases at the C/E station at 50th St.; and assorted understaffed areas in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Few of these passageways and staircases have reopened in the intervening twenty years, and most have been lost to the vagaries of time and subway history. That Gimbel’s tunnel is but a memory from another era.

Today, the subways are safer than they’ve ever been in part because the more dangerous high-crime areas have been off limits for two decades, and yet, that fear always lurks in the minds of New Yorkers. With station agents set to be eliminated, many wonder if we’re in for a repeat of the shiftiness of the the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, new technology and innovation – cameras, more efficient police beats – make the subways safer, and maybe one day, the MTA, with the right investment project, can reactivate these old passageways and restore lost transfer points.

In fact, Vornado is proposing to do just that. In a sweeping plan that would overhaul the Herald Square-Penn Station area, the real estate company has called for the reopening of the Gimbel’s tunnel. Their ambitious transit renovations would reconnect the 34th St./Herald Square complex with the 7th Ave./Penn Station stop, and instead of a dual fare at either end of the tunnel, the connection would be free. This underground dream that would see 34th St. resemble the Rockefeller Center are a long way from reality, and for now, these various passageways shuttered throughout the city remain the ghosts in the subway machine.

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AsidesMTA Economics

Saving millions just by asking

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

Toward the end of last week, the MTA announced $40 million in savings through cuts to back-end projects, and in doing so, authority officials said they would next begin to renegotiate vendor contracts. Today, the MTA has announced $18 million dollars in 2010 savings through just that route. By renegotiating contracts with 43 vendors and suppliers, the MTA will rack up the savings in 2010 and reduce costs by $70 million over the life of the contracts.

According to MTA officials, the savings will come via renegotiated paratransit and IT vendor savings, and the MTA says that riders will not notice the difference. “Companies in financial distress often go back to vendors and ask them to renegotiate contracts and that’s exactly what we’re doing here,” MTA Chief Operating Officer Charles Monheim said. “We took a new approach asking our suppliers if they could do better and in many cases, the answer was yes.”

Interestingly, as per The Times, those vendors who refused to negotiate will be penalized in the future with fewer MTA business opportunities. “Let me put it this way,” Monheim said to Michael Grynbaum. “They will be given all the rights any contractor would receive. But we may be less inclined, where we have discretion, to be favorably disposed to them.” Meanwhile, the MTA still has to find at least another $300 million in savings to close their 2010 budget gap, and without more massive cuts or a premature fare hike, they will be hard-pressed to do so.

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MTA Politics

Voters: Bloomberg failing on public transportation

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

When Michael Bloomberg upending term limits and ran for a third four-year stint as Mayor of New York City, he did so on a platform of reforming mass transit in New York City. Less than six months after Election Day, voters are already indicted Bloomberg for his public transportation failures.

Bloomberg’s plan was a fairly straight-forward one. It included 33 points that ranged from subway expansion plans pushed by transit advocates – F express, for instance – to controversial calls to make all bus rides free to the amorphous “overhauling the MTA” and “trimming the fat” that have become transit buzzwords in New York City over the past 10-15 years. Generally, as I noted in August, because Bloomberg controls just 4 of the 14 votes on the MTA’s board, his plan was a populist appeal for votes from disgruntled New York City subway riders and not something he could actually implement.

Yet, despite this political reality, Bloomberg pushed the plan in TV spots and Internet ads. He railed against the state of transit, and despite a less-than-stellar transit record during his first two terms, he made his campaign about improving transit in the city. After earning his reelection, he quickly cooled talk on his transit promises, and since then, we’ve heard little from Bloomberg on his late-summer promises to help the cash-starved MTA.

Yesterday, a Marist revealed that New Yorkers aren’t keen with the Mayor’s transit record but that they also don’t care too much about it. The poll – available in full here – gave Bloomberg a 56 percent approval rating, and 38 percent of respondents called Bloomie the best mayor in New York City in three decades.

While voters say overall quality of life has improved, New Yorkers’ views of transportation have not. The poll asked voters if, in the past eight years since Bloomberg became better, public transit had gotten better, worse or stayed the same. While in 2006 voters thought transit had improved under Bloomberg’s watch, this time around 46 percent believed the subways and buses have gotten worse. Of the remaining 54 percent, 18 percent said the options are better, and 36 percent said transit has stayed the same.

In response, the Straphangers Campaign tried to spin as though New Yorkers are making a connection. “Not surprisingly,” Gene Russianoff said, “voters hold the Mayor accountable for the bad news about transit.”

The problem, however, is that voters do not hold the Mayor accountable for the bad news about transit. Voters don’t hold the mayor accountable; they don’t hold their State Senators accountable; they don’t hold the Assembly accountable; they don’t hold anyone accountable. New Yorkers prefer to complain about the MTA – offering similar services for a higher nominal-dollar but not inflation-adjusted dollar price today than they did eight years ago – than actually do something or vote someone into office who will do something about it.

Over the last six months, Mayor Bloomberg has been an abject failure on transit. In fact, since his congestion pricing plan failed to garner approval in Albany, Bloomberg has been a non-entity when it comes to helping the MTA. He hasn’t expressed support for a permanent funding plan based on bridge tolls or a renewed congestion pricing push. He hasn’t vowed to fund student transit as the municipality that schools children should. He hasn’t made noises in Albany to help rescue the MTA, and he hasn’t done much of anything in New York. Still, New Yorkers view him favorable, and they clearly do not hold him accountable for bad news about transit.

As the MTA falters, political apathy on the part of voters is just another force with which those who want transit investment must contend. New Yorkers recognize the importance of public transportation to New York City, and they recognize that it isn’t as good as it should be or once was. Yet, the fingers are pointed not at our elected officials but at an MTA too poor to do much about it. These poll results reflect badly on Bloomberg, but no one would hold him accountable.

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Second Avenue Subway

An SAS date with the tunnel boring machine

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

At the end of last week, I profiled the tunnel boring machine that the MTA said would soon be lowered into the launch box below Second Ave. Yesterday, we learned that the big date is sooner than we think.

The SAS TBM – whose 22-foot cutterhead is shown above – is heading for Second Ave. Over the next three weeks, according to a notice posted on the CB8 website, the TBM will be lowered into the launch box and reassembled. It will then start drilling out the Second Ave. Subway tunnels. The notice reads:

Tunnel Boring Machine delivery notice

Over the next three weeks, between April 12 – 30, 2010, we plan to deliver to the work site and start assembly of the 22-foot diameter Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), all its associated back-up equipment, as well as the excavation material haulage system and removal equipment.

The TBM and associated back-up equipment are over 300 feet long, and consists of the TBM itself and eighteen double-deck rail cars on which the actual back-up equipment is carried. In addition, locomotives to haul material into the tunnel and rail cars for removal of excavated material will also be delivered. The total weight of the TBM itself is of the order of 485 tons, and will therefore be delivered in smaller pieces and assembled on site. Some of the individual heavier components of the TBM weigh between 60 to 125 tons. Similarly, the rail cars and back-up equipment will be delivered as individual components and installed/assembled in the Launch Box. All lowering of the TBM and back-up components will take place at the deck opening between 92nd and 91st Streets. A large crane will be located south of this deck opening to perform the lowering operations.

Due to the size of the machinery and DOT oversize load restrictions, the delivery of this equipment will need to occur at night between the hours of 11:00 pm and 6:00 am, on weekdays only. Lifting the equipment off the trucks and lowering into the launch Box will require up to three lanes of Second Avenue to be closed to traffic for two weeks (April 12 through April 23) and one lane for one week (April 26 through April 30) between the hours of 11:00 pm and 6:00 am. In addition, all lanes will be shut down during the actual pick of the equipment for safety reasons. Second Avenue will remain open to traffic during other times. Staging of the delivery trucks will be alongside the Launch Box and possibly at discrete locations north of 95th Street.

Please be advised that a safe work plan for this operation is in place. Due to the nature of this extended operation and safety precautions to be taken, the area will be lighted and some noise during its performance is unavoidable. MTACC will make every effort to minimize any impact to the community during these night-time hours.

As I mentioned on Friday, this TBM was made 30 years and was reconditioned to be “like new.” It has been put to use on four other projects, including the 63rd St. subway tunnel, and it was tested just a few weeks ago in Newark, NJ. Watch below a video of the testing, and for more on this TBM, check out coverage on The Launch Box and Upper Green Side.

Image above courtesy of MTA Capital Construction. Click it to enlarge.

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Subway Security

Trying to protect a porous subway system

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

In this April 1, 2010 photo, NYPD transit officer Robert McMillan watches the subway tunnel on video monitors from the Omega booth at the Borough Hall station in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

As details have emerged about the planned attack on the New York City subway led by Najibullah Zazi, I haven’t focused too closely on the story. For one, few people like to be reminded of the dangers we face everyday as we ride a very porous subway system. For another, although the FBI stopped this potential terrorist attack four days before it was set to be put in motion, law enforcement had the situation under control for months. We can’t let fear rule our lives when governmental agencies are doing their jobs properly.

The story, generally, is this: Zazi, a legal permanent resident of the United States, had trained with al-Qaeda for a while in Pakistan. While there, he had met a few other United States natives, and he and his followers had put in motion a plan to attack the New York City subways. This week, details of the plans emerged in the Daily News, and they are chilling:

Zazi and his two Queens friends allegedly planned to strap explosives to their bodies and split up, heading for the Grand Central and Times Square stations – the two busiest subway stations in New York City.

They would board trains on the 1, 2, 3 and 6 lines at rush hour and planned to position themselves in the middle of the packed trains to ensure the maximum carnage when they blew themselves up, sources said.

During Zazi’s brief visit to Queens from his home in Denver last September, he rode the subway multiple times to the Grand Central and Wall St. stations, scouting where to best spread death and mayhem, the sources said.

Terrorist experts estimated that these attacks would have been more deadly than any of the previous train bombings, and it’s hard to guess how damage along the IRT lines would have impacted the oldest tunnels in the city. Yet, despite these fears, Scotland Yard question the limitations of underground surveillance cameras, the public perception is one of risk. We hope today isn’t the day someone detonates a bomb in the subways.

In a more comforting look at security underground, though, the AP explored how the NYPD is pursuing a counterterrorism strategy when it comes to the subways. The AP notes that the NYPD uses “bomb-sniffing dogs, high-tech explosive detection devices and security cameras” as well as good old fashioned manpower in booths that sit in stations next to the various tunnels that cross from Manhattan to the outer boroughs.

Still, the Zazi story makes me believe that maybe the NYPD isn’t doing as much it could. According to a few sources, Zazi and his co-conspirators would have taken their explosives in backpacks. Perhaps, the NYPD back checks should be reconsidered. Perhaps it’s just impossible to stop someone determined enough to attack a vast and open subway system.

In a way, much of our subway security is based upon hope. We hope a terrorist slips up. We hope the FBI or Homeland Security is paying attention to the right warning signs. We hope no one is asleep at the proverbial wheel. It might be the most comforting thought, but at times, it’s all we have.

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MTA Technology

Transit’s PA/CIS rollout enters Brooklyn

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

For the better part of two years, new LCD displays have set wrapped and unused at Brooklyn stations along the IRT lines. At Bergen St. and at Grand Army Plaza, at Eastern Parkway and at Kingston Ave., these countdown clocks have been idle, a reminder of promises of MTA technology to come.

Today, Transit announced that four stations along the 2 and 3 line in Brooklyn are now enjoying the countdown clocks. The PA/CIS system has been activated at Bergen St. (above), Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum, Nostrand Ave. and Kingston Ave. with more stations to enjoy countdown clocks in Kings County over the next few months.

The Public Address Customer Information Screens are a part of a project nearly ten years in the making. It was originally funded under the 2000-2004 capital plan, and the A Division rollout won’t be completed until the spring of 2011. In addition to arrival information, the screens can also allow Transit to provide important audio and visual messages to customers in the event of an emergency. All information originates from Transit’s Rail Control Center.

Since the MTA announced a 2011 completion date for the project in October, we’ve seen the clocks debut along the 6 as the rollout has continued incrementally. Soon, Brooklyn and Manhattan’s IRT stops will enjoy the necessity of late-20th Century technology as well. One day, peering into the tunnel to look for a train will be the wave of the transportation past.

Photo via Twitpic and courtesy of New York City Transit.

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