MTA Absurdity

MTA employees use vests to deter parking tickets

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

A well-placed vest can deter a parking ticket. (Photo via the Daily News)

Over the last few years, a handful of politicians and livable streets advocates have tried to pressure the NYPD into cracking down on parking placard abuse. Too often do people believe they can illegally by flashing some official-looking document. Whether those documents are legit or homemade, the drivers often should not be using the placards in such a manner, and pedestrians and those looking for legal parking spots lose out.

Today, the Daily News reports that MTA employees have gotten in on the act by placing their vests in their car windshields in order to signal to parking enforcers. Of course, it takes two to tango, and the parking enforcement agents shouldn’t allow a simple vest to deter them from writing up an illegally parked car. That hasn’t, however, stopped too many enforcement agents from turning a blind eye. Joe Kemp has more:

Just because you work for the government doesn’t mean you get to park for free, but try telling that to one Queens neighborhood.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees that use their orange safety vests to dodge parking fees in municipal lots have long aggravated motorists fighting for a space on a busy Astoria block. And the bright-colored apparel, which bear the MTA logo, on the dashboards of parked vehicles help avoid hefty fines from traffic agents, locals said.

But the free ride may soon be over. A city councilman is calling for the city to start ticketing the illegally parked cars. “The city is taking placards away from people who legitimately need them,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria). “While their agents are overlooking orange vests in the windshield, which is completely unfair.”

It is at least somewhat comforting to see a politician speaking out against this practice, but Vallone is hardly being pro-pedestrian. He just wants those who have legitimate placards to have a place to use them. In my opinion, the city should rescind every placard and begin reissuing them with far more stringent criteria, but that’s neither here nor there right now.

For its part, the MTA said this practice of using vests for parking should be stopped. “We do not condone this practice of using the vests as a parking placard,” Deirdre Parker, a Transit spokesperson, said to the News. “Anyone who does this should be ticketed like anyone else who violates the law.”

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AsidesSubway Security

Three arrested in 2 train murder

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

Following last Sunday’s 2 train murder that left two men dead and another wounded, police have charged three men with murder. According to the NYPD, Brenddy Garcia, Franklin Varella and Diogenes Hernandez will be charged with second-degree murder, and Garcia will face a charge of criminal possession of a weapon. Although initial investigations were hampered by a lack of security cameras, the police were able to track down suspects based on witness statements. Originally, news outlets reported the murder as an unprovoked attack brought on when an errant bag of garbage tossed from the train car hit the alleged killer in the chest. Today, though, NY1 reports that the two groups of young men were provoking each other before the stabbings occurred. Color me unsurprised.

Update (3:52 p.m.): According to a recent WNYC report, two of the three suspects were let go. Varella and Hernandez will not, according to sources, be charged due to “a lack of evidence.” Manhattan DA Cy Vance has charged Brenddy Garcia with second-degree murder, but Garcia says he acted in self-defense after getting struck in the hit with an empty beer bottle.

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Public Transit Policy

A nation in support of public transportation

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

For much of the last two years, New Yorkers have witnessed a battle of mass transit funding and public transportation policy. While New York City, the state’s economic driver and only area of New York experiencing a population growth, needs and relies on its mass transit system to function efficiently and productivity, the state legislators holding the purse strings have not readily embraced making tough choices over public transportation funding.

We don’t have congestion pricing or bridge tolls, and we don’t have a commuter tax with proceeds funneled to the network that brings commuters to work. Instead, we have an MTA teetering on the edge of financial ruin that is preparing to slash services and may need to raise fares for the third year in a row. It is a political mess and one most New Yorkers do not support. If we had our druthers, the state would be investing heavily in city-based and city-oriented transit networks.

Across the country, as transit ridership increases but the costs of running a public transportation network do as well, municipalities are, by and large, facing cuts to their transit options. A new survey by the American Public Transportation Association released yesterday revealed that 84 percent of transit agencies have had to raise fares, cut service or consider both options since the start of 2009 in order to meet budget. Another 69 percent of those surveyed are trying to close budget deficits this year, and 11 percent of all transit agencies have a budget gap of 20 percent or more for the current fiscal year. Needless to say, this is dismaying news.

It shouldn’t, according to the American people, be like this though. In fact, most Americans want to see more transit investment and more federal support for local public transit networks. In a new poll released this week, Transportation for America found overwhelming support for public transportation. In fact, 82 percent of those polled said that “the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses.” More comforting too were people’s traffic-mitigation preferences. Take a look:

On an economic level, though, the true preferences were encouraging. Currently, the federal government spends approximately 17 cents out of every transportation dollar on public transit. Fifty-eight percent of poll respondents said that the feds should spend more, and most people thought that the government should be willing to more than double that amount to 37 cents per transportation dollar. The full poll and all of the results are available here.

Right now, it’s tough to find much joy in these numbers because it often seems as though no one is listening. We as New Yorkers, we as Americans, want a greater investment and a stronger commitment to the railroads, subways and buses that transport us. Yet, politicians are hesitant or unwilling to make that commitment, and even more are just downright hostile toward public transportation.

As the MTA, the nation’s largest transit agency, struggles to stay afloat, these dramas I write about every day are repeating themselves on a smaller scale across the country. As public transit networks fail, Americans want more rail and bus options. They want to have cheaper, reliable and efficient transportation options, and they want the government to spend money on it. Maybe one day, those we elect to represent us will wake up to that truth. For now, we just have to hope the MTA and its brethren can weather this bad economic storm.

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AsidesSecond Avenue Subway

Second Ave. Subway spared from state-wide construction shutdown

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

When Gov. David Paterson earlier this week announced a construction freeze on all state projects if the New York legislature did not pass the budget on time, I feared for the future of the Second Ave. Subway. I knew Albany would not pass the budget before midnight on March 31, the legislatively-imposed deadline, and when April 1 dawned last night with no budget in place, it seemed as though Paterson’s shutdown would come to pass. So with New York heading toward financial difficulties and no firm budget plan in place, would this be the economic move that killed the Second Ave. Subway?

I posed this question to the MTA yesterday, and although construction in the 1970s halted due to a crushing economic crisis, this year, Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway will move ahead as planned. With the MTA relying heavily on federal funds, stimulus grants and money secured through bonds for this project, the state construction shutdown will have no impact on construction underneath Second Ave. With federal money as the engine driving this project forward, its looking more and more likely that, at the very least, Phase 1 of the SAS will open this decade, New York City history be damned.

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AsidesView from Underground

Report: MTA’s new austerity plan literally a return to the 1970s

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

Clearly, this City Hall News story is an April Fool’s joke, but it’s a thorough one that serves as a commentary on the state of our public transit system. The inside-politics publication reports that the MTA will discard all R160s and instead bring back the R26. The cars will be covered in graffiti, and I’d imagine the Massimo Vignelli map will make a triumphant return.

As a obvious a joke as that report is, it made me reflect on the state of our subways. Two years ago on April Fool’s Day, I wrote about how the MTA had just announced plans to shutter the subway at night. It seemed just plausible enough to rope people in but not realistic enough for the MTA to implement it. Today, the MTA is facing a budget hole of $750 million and will be cutting service drastically this summer. The joke has become reality, and it doesn’t seem nearly as funny today as it did in 2008.

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Subway HistorySubway Maps

On a map, the history of the subway

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

A few months ago, this map landed in my inbox. For New York City subway history enthusiasts, it’s a fascinating document. As the excerpt above shows, it is a map of the system with historical annotations. Think of it as a visual timeline of New York City subway history. You’ll get lost in it for hours.

I’ll include the full map below for your perusal, and it comes with some accompanying text I’ll type out below. Basically, the excerpt offers up a simplified look at the political goings-on that led to the MTA and provides some insight into the now-defunct IRT/BMT/IND distinctions that I still use on Second Ave. Sagas.

Historical Map of the New York Subway

At the beginning of the 20th century, Manhattan had a large elevated system dating from 1870 run by the Manhattan Elevated RR Co., one branch of which reached inot the Bronx. Brooklyn had a large surface and elevated system operated by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co (BRT). Construction of the first subway began in 1900, and the Interborough Rapid Transit Co (IRT) commenced operation in 1904. The original route ran from City Hall to 145 St. via Grand Central and Times Square. The IRT also leased the Manhattan Elevated Co. The IRT system was extended into the Bronx and Brooklyn through 1908. Around this time, the question of municipal ownership became an issue. In 1909 a master plan for a separate city built system – the Triborough System – was proposed. This plan specified a larger load gauge than used on the IRT to allow interchange with main line railroad equipment. Although not adopted, the Triboro plan produced the two different size specifications which to this day prevents total interchangeability between lines.

Instead, the so called Dual Contracts system was employed to draw together the IRT and BRT. Construction of the dual system lines began in 1931- more than half the mileage being of elevated structure, embankment or open cut. Some elevated lines were reconstructions of older pre-dual contract els. The BRT went into receivership in 1918 which ended in 192 when it was renamed and reorganized as the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Corp (BMT).

In 1924 control over sorely needed new routes was returned to the city with the establishment of a Board of Transportation. The City of New York became a subway operator in 1932 when the municipally built Independent system (IND) was opened.

Unification took place in 1940 when the BOT aquired the BMT and bankrupt IRT systems. Elimination of original el routes was commenced.

BOT control ended in 1953 with the creation of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA). The BMT and IND systems were merged in 1967 with the opening of the Chrystie St. connection in Manhattan. Control of the NYCTA passed to the new Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1968. Ex IRT lines were now known as the A Division and ex BMT/IND lines as B Dvision. The last pre-subway ‘el’ closed in 1973 with the end of the 3rd Avenue el Bronx service.

To view the entire map, click the image below. Be forewarned: The file is approximately 6 MB.

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AsidesMoynihan Station

Empire State Development Corp. gives Moynihan the OK

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 31, 2010

Six weeks after the Moynihan Station projected earned an $83 million TIGER grant that will enable the city to build Phase I of the ambitious Penn Station expansion plan, New York’s Empire State Development Corporation has approved the amended General Project Plan. (View the amended Project Plan here.) The ESDC vote kicked off the public approval process, and the next major milestone will be a public hearing on Wednesday April 28 at the Farley Post Office, the future site of the project.

“Too many have waited too long for relief at Penn Station,” Robin Stout, Moynihan Station Development Corporation president said in a statement after the vote. “As we move through the public approval process, we will also be concluding our design and documentation so that Phase 1 construction can begin as soon as possible.”

As the Moynihan Station plan moves forward — with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill as the lead architects — the costs remain an issue. Phase I is a $267 million project that simply improves access to the current Penn Station by constructing more entrances and widening a few platforms. Phase II, which will turn the Farley Building into a rail hall, will cost between $1-$1.5 billion and has not yet received any funding commitments. Baby steps are better than no progress at all, but I’m not too optimistic that the Moynihan Station plan as it currently exists will see the light of day anytime soon.

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Subway Advertising

MTA rejects WFP service alert parody ads

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 31, 2010


A few weeks ago, the Working Families Party sent out an email about a planned ad campaign aimed at Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Using parodies of the MTA’s ubiquitous service advisory signs, the WFP wanted to bring attention to the fact that Bloomberg had made some lofty campaign promises concerning transit in New York City but had failed to live up to those promises so far. Using the subway bullets to take jabs at the Mayor, the WFP proclaimed “OMFG” and “WTF?”

When these ads hit my inbox, I had a feeling the MTA would reject them. They resembled the service advisories, and the MTA would allege that the signs would confuse riders into thinking the authority itself endorsed the views expressed by the WFP. It is unsurprising, then, to read today that the MTA has rejected these ads on exactly those grounds. The agency will forego between $25-$50,000 and may incur a First Amendment challenge. But the ads, they say, are obscene.

The Daily News’ Pete Donohue has more:

Transit officials rejected the spots because the acronyms imply obscene language that many riders may find “offensive, improper or in bad taste,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. The ads also look too much like the real thing, using subway-line logos to form the suggestive acronyms, according to the MTA. Some riders might believe they are real authority bulletins, officials said – or that the authority agrees with the political message.

The Working Families Party was looking to spend $25,000 to $50,000 for a four-week run in the transit system, party spokesman Bryan Collinsworth said. “We were really hoping to put some pressure on the mayor,” Collinsworth said. “We think he controls a central piece of the puzzle.”

…Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the campaign was simply off track, in part because the mayor speaks out daily about the need for more transit funding. “Their anger on this issue is misdirected,” LaVorgna said. “They should be directing their anger to the state, which has yet to come up with a successful funding source for the MTA. They should be talking to the entity that controls the MTA, which is the state and the state Legislature.”

Although LaVorgna is right in telling people to direct their ire toward state officials, Mayor Bloomberg has not tried to deliver on his

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MetroCardSubway History

How the Unlimited MetroCard revolutionized transit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 31, 2010

When Tuesday dawned another cold, windy and rainy day, I pondered how New Yorkers ride the subway in those ugly conditions. On rainy days, the trains are damp and more crowded than usual. People who would otherwise walk or bike to their myriad destinations head underground for a ride free from rain.

Meanwhile, throughout the city, people running errands opt to duck underground as well. Instead of walking from, say, 50th St. to 40th St., the one-stop ride along the Sixth Ave. IND often calls out, and while 15 years ago, that ride would have cost $1.25, today, the Unlimited MetroCard urges you to take that one- or two-stop ride. Straphangers, in fact, get better deals on their weekly or monthly cards if they ride more frequently, and the MTA earns less per ride. In a way, it is a perverse incentive.

Today, the Unlimited MetroCard is a way of life. In January, over 50 percent of all non-student trips came from one of the four unlimited ride offerings. Yet, 12 years ago, few were aware of the looming debut of these cards that have changed the way we ride.

Gov. George Pataki first announced unlimited ride cards in early December 1997. Original plans called for a $63 30-day card, a $17 seven-day card and a $4 one-day fun pass. In a twist of history, the MTA could afford to offer these discount cards because of a surplus of tax revenue in 1997. The agency was expected to lose over $230 million on the per-ride discounts, and as riders today pay an inflation-adjusted fare that is 36 cents lower than the average fare was in 1996, this loss is still haunting the MTA today.

While the 30-day cards then — and still do today — require someone to ride at least 47 times to be a better deal than the pay-per-ride discounts, the new passes were designed to encourage use. Original MTA estimates projected 100 million more riders per year, an increase of six percent. ”The goal here,” Pataki said said to The Times, ”was very simply to empower the rider. Empower the person who takes the subway and the person who takes the bus by giving them the broadest possible range of options as to how they want to choose to use the mass transit system.”

When the unlimited cards debuted on July 4, 1998, they were an immediate hit. Even though plans for the one-day card were delayed, lines at the token booths snaked through stations, and New Yorkers were eager to take advantage of the potential savings. ”Maybe it would stop me from taking so many cabs,” one rider said at the time. ”It has to do with commitment. Once I’ve made that $17 investment up front, I see it as a free situation, rather than a $5 cab ride minus the dollar-and-a-half public transportation.”

The only down side riders could find was the original 18-minute use restriction. The unlimited ride cards could be used once system-wide every 18 minutes, and many straphangers taking short trips found themselves waiting for time to expire. Eventually, Transit agreed to reduce the limitations to their current form. Today, riders can swipe in at the same station only once every 18 minutes but can enter the system at other points before the time limit is up.

Immediately, the savings were apparent. As The Daily News noted, messenger services and frequent train riders were going to realize savings of hundreds of dollars annually. First day sales were very brisk and have continued to be for the past 12 years.

Today, the unlimited ride cards are still a great deal. As a student and frequent subway rider, my pay-per-ride cost off of the $89 monthly card is only just around $1.10 per ride. I can hop on and hop off the trains and buses as I please, and I don’t have to think twice about taking a trip we used to view as unnecessary 15 or 20 years ago. The Unlimited MetroCards changed the way we ride and interact with the system, and that was true transit innovation for New York City.

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AsidesSubway History

The IRT on LSD

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

In the musical Hair, the Tribe sing a song called “Initials” in which LBJ takes the IRT to find a bunch of kids on LSD. It turns out that perhaps the kids weren’t the only ones on LSD. In an intriguing report published while I was on vacation for a few days earlier this month, The Post notes a new book book on the CIA that alleges LSD experiments in the subway. On two occasions in the early 1950s, FBI documents purport to say, the CIA planned to test the hallucinogen in the New York City subway. Supposed, the tests were carried out in November of 1950, but no one has ever confirmed the line or station that served as the intelligence agency’s guinea pig.

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