I don’t often delve into the arena of the federal transportation policy. Generally, the feds are happy to toss some money the MTA’s way and leave the country’s largest mass transit system to operate on its own. Most of the time, it’s a comfortable arrangement for everyone.
Yet, sometimes, the FTA rears its head and requires the MTA — and the rest of the country — to enact costly safety standards. Does the federal government foot the bill? Of course not. Are these standards generally too costly and overprotective to meet the demands of the problems they are trying to solve? Of course.
Most recently, I examined how, in the wake of recent WMATA collisions in Washington D.C., the FTA was considering implementing local transit safety oversight measures that would require a higher level of safety standards than necessary. The costs would fall on the shoulders of the local transit agencies, and the FTA would ensure adherence to the standards by threatening to take away subsidies for those authorities unwilling to comply.
Today, we hear about another unfunded federal mandate that could cost the MTA nearly $700 million out of its capital budget by 2015. The MTA says its commuter rail lines don’t need this safety system because Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains already come equipped with sufficient safety controls. Tom Namako of The Post has the details:
The feds want a system installed that allows a computer to reduce a train’s speed in a number of situations. The MTA trains are already equipped with a similar system, but it kicks in only when one is in danger of crashing into another…
“It’s a lot of money,” said Bill Henderson of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “And my belief is that the MTA’s railroads are substantially safer than many of the similar ones in the rest of the nation.”
Metro-North hasn’t seen a passenger die from a train crash in its 27-year history. The LIRR hasn’t had a fatality since the 1950s. Still, Congress mandated in October 2008 that all commuter railroads in the country install what’s known as positive train control after 25 people died in a California crash. But that California railroad — like most others in the nation — was using far less sophisticated equipment than the MTA’s, sources and documents say. Now LIRR and Metro-North — the country’s first- and second-largest systems — have until the end of 2015 to install the safety measures.
In a letter to the feds earlier this month requesting an exemption from these standards, the MTA highlighted how this system would provide only a “marginal benefit” but would bring with it “significant cost and risk to a rail system which currently has a high degree of safety. This one appears to be a typical no-brainer. If the federal government won’t pick up the price tag and if the marginal safety upgrades aren’t worth the significant costs, the MTA should not be expected to pick up the price tag.
I understand the purpose of federal safety standards. After all, someone needs to make sure that our country’s chronically underfunded rail lines are operating with acceptable safety parameters. But the FTA needs to show some flexibility, and here, that should lead to an exemption for the MTA.
Student protests and parental complaints about the MTA’s proposed student MetroCard cuts are on the verge of taking center stage this week as the MTA Board gears up to hold hearings on its slate of service cuts. The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has 
Throughout this week, MTA Board members and division heads will sit through a series of public hearings on the Authority’s latest proposed service cuts. Generally, a vocal minority of bus riders, paratransit users and student groups will browbeat the board members over cuts that will decimate bus riders, pare down Access-a-Ride and eliminate free student travel on New York City Transit’s buses and subways. Most people will heap tons of blame upon the shoulders of MTA Board members who have few avenues other than service cuts and fare hikes, and some of the city’s elected representatives — those same representatives who 
Update (12:25 p.m. Sunday): For many people, a managerial shake-up at New York City Transit won’t mean very much. It can be seen as some backroom wheelin’ and dealin’ by the MTA. But 
Throughout the world, major transit systems operate with just one person in charge of each train. In London and Hong Kong, Moscow and Paris, one-person train operation has become the norm. Using CCTVs and modern-day technology, one person is in charge of driving the trains, opening and closing the doors, making announcements and generally overseeing the trains. These systems run smoothly and have realized significant cost savings by cutting out a generally unnecessary employee from every train. 
As the MTA’s finances have gone south, the authority has held the line on their preference for service cuts over fare hikes. Since the fares have gone up in each of the last two years and are scheduled to increase again in 2011, the agency is hesitant to use a fare increase as a fiscal band aid yet again this year.