AsidesService Advisories

The C Train blues

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 18, 2010

With apologies to Duke Ellington for the headline, it seems as though some Transit riders were stymied by the MTA’s last-minute IND midweek service changes. When the snows came last week, Transit had to postpone a major service change along the Central Park West lines north of 59th St., and after a three-day weekend, the agency decided to announce the changes late on Monday afternoon. Despite getting the word out to news outlets throughout the city, the Daily News notes that many C train riders simply didn’t get the message.

According to Kate Nocera and Pete Donohue, Transit workers manning the system on Tuesday weren’t prepared for widespread ignorance of the last-minute change. Signs on the platforms did not reflect the temporary service patterns, and major stations did not feature additional MTA personnel instructing straphangers of the changes. Conductors on some E trains made announcements but not, says the Daily News, at stations where riders would usually be able to transfer to the C. As a result, many riders were simply unaware of the problems they would face.

What is comforting, though, is Transit’s willingness to accept responsibility for the lack of information. In an era in which Jay Walder, the new CEO and Chair, has pushed for transparency and accountability, Transit took the blame. “This was a last minute addition to the diversion schedule but there’s no excuse for not having the proper information out at affected stations,” agency spokesman Paul Fleuranges said. “We can and should do better and we will.” Fleuranges’ statement doesn’t get at the fact that people in the subways often simply disregard the signs even when they’re up, but that’s a topic for another day.

3 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
7 Line Extension

Years late, REBNY throws support behind 7 station

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 18, 2010

The fourth post in Second Ave. Sagas’ history arrived on November 29, 2006. In it, I reported the news that the planned station along the 7 line extension at 41st St. and 10th Ave. might be axed due to rising costs. It was the first we heard of any change in the city’s plans, and over the next few years, the MTA and New York City engaged in some good old fashioned political wrangling. Even Sen. Chuck Schumer threw his hat into the ring. After the MTA shot down a proposal from the city to go 50/50 on the station, the two officially killed the planned stop on September 19, 2008, a good 17 months ago.

In the intervening months, I’ve checked in on the progress underneath 11th Ave. as the tunnel boring machine slowly makes it way toward Times Square. I’ve written extensively on the need for a stop at 41st. and 10th and the folly of building the extension without even a shell of a station. Transit advocates and those plugged into the urban planning community understand the need for the station now and if that’s not feasible, then at least provisions for a shell. Building nothing now would ensure nothing in the future because the costs will be just too high.

Yet, until just last week, we had few vocal allies in this fight. The people who needed the station and stood to benefit most — the real estate owners in Hell’s Kitchen and the residents there — were silent until last week when Mary Anne Tighe, the head of the Real Estate Board of New York City, spoke out in favor of the stop. Now, suddenly realizing that this station won’t exist, Tighe and REBNY are preparing to throw their weight behind a public campaign to urge the city to build something at 41st and 10th Ave. Where were they two years ago?

Charles V. Bagli profiled their efforts in The Times yesterday. The group has launched a new website/online petition called Build the Station and hope to use the same lobbying prowess that resulted in the federal government’s decision to move the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial in this subway oriented effort. “We think it should have two stops,” Steven Spinola, president of REBNY, said. “There is substantial growth already taking place near 10th and 41st. For them to quietly let the station evaporate, without anyone telling anybody, is a mistake.”

Based on Bagli’s story, REBNY is going to push the feds for money to fund this station, but it sounds as though REBNY is nearly too late to make a difference:

The station’s status is not exactly news, however. City and transit authority officials say that the station was eliminated from the plans more than two years ago, and it was not a secret. There were newspaper articles and protests by elected officials, including Senator Charles E. Schumer and Representative Jerrold Nadler. The city and the authority did retain an “option” with its construction contractor to build the second station, but that expired in September 2008.

For now, the plan is to continue to cut a tunnel from 34th and 11th to the current No. 7 terminus at Times Square. The tunnel will pass by 41st and 10th, where the second station was to be built…

Mr. Spinola said developers like Joseph Moinian and Larry Silverstein and tenants in some of the new towers on 42nd Street had long understood that the station would be built. The board, in fact, is so eager to see plans for it resurrected in these financially trying times that it says local landlords may be willing to provide some cash, say $50 million of the $800 million cost.

As Bagli notes, unsurprisingly, some developers care more about this station than others, and Related, the company trying to purchase the land rights atop the Hudson Yards, just wants its promised stop at 34th St. and 11th Ave. completed.

Many have long urged real estate developers to get involved, and the idea that those who stand to benefit the most should pay for some of the infrastructure improvements is not a new one in the public discourse. It has, however, often been met with contempt by landowners who don’t want to pay for improvements that won’t be realized for years down the road. If REBNY can truly convince someone, anyone, to fund this station, it would be a minor miracle. But then again, if the Moynihan Station can draw in $267 million for a bunch of staircases, why can’t this station, one in the path of oncoming construction and trains, get the money?

The city, of course, remained as obstinate as ever. “A 10th Avenue station might sound nice,” a spokesman for the mayor said to Bagli, “but the MTA and state budget problems are well known, and the city is in no position to step in to pay for that, too.”

36 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesMTA Technology

MTA slowed by old office computer technology

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 17, 2010

Over the years, one of my major themes here at Second Ave. Sagas has been the MTA’s love/hate relationship with technology. When it comes to technological innovation and adaptation, the MTA has seemingly been mired in the early 1990s, and in fact, the Regional Plan Association just profiled the MTA’s technological woes in its latest Spotlight on the Region. Only over the last few months with MTA CEO and Chair Jay Walder leading an increased push for better service and customer relations has the agency embraced newer transit technologies. Still, the agency can go only as far as their operating system can take them, and to that end, Heather Haddon reported in amNew York yesterday, the agency has some work to do.

According to transit watchdogs, old software and inadequate Internet connections are plaguing work at MTAHQ and interfering with basic tasks. Based on information Haddon received, the MTA is stuck with Microsoft applications from 2003 or earlier and have trouble with large-scale tasks. Work assignments take four months longer to generate than they should, and the MTA has run into legal sanctions when data has been lost due to computer errors. Meanwhile, Internet bandwidth is so scarce at the officers that the Internet slows to a crawl everyday.

In the end, Walder recognizes these institutional problems. “These are things we have to find out how to be more nimble about it,” he said. Yet, the problem remains the money. It costs a lot to upgrade computer equipment, and I know plenty of businesses still trying to rely on computers that are pushing seven or eight years of age. Better technology at the office will lead to a more efficient and streamlined operations, but can the MTA afford to get there in the first place?

14 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
MTA Technology

Along the B division, a cheaper countdown clock

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 17, 2010

At 145th St., old signs are used to test a new real-time technology. (All photos courtesy of New York City Transit)

As Jay Walder settles into his role as the MTA’s newest CEO and Chairman, he has pushed the MTA to deliver more real-time train information. For an agency long criticized for its inability to adapt new or not-so-new transit technologies, Walder’s desire for more information has challenged the agency to come up with new solutions to old problems.

Lately, that focus has been on delivering better train arrival information to customers. Generally, aspects of transit technology that make commuters’ rides less stressful — such as countdown clocks — have been slow to come to New York. Yet, the agency is now engaged in a $200 million project to bring those countdown clocks to the A Division stations — that is, the city’s numbered subway stations. As these plans came to light in the fall, Transit could not commit to bringing the same technology to the lettered lines that make up the subway’s so-called B Division routes.

Recently, though, with a little innovation, the agency has debuted a poor man’s version of countdown clocks at some B Division stations. At a cost of just $20,000, six stations along the A and C lines in Washington Heights and Harlem will participate in a trial program that uses preexisting technology to bring real-time train arrival information underground. However, because the technology isn’t nearly as advanced as that deployed along the A Division lines, riders will receive less detailed information than the signs currently in place in the Bronx provide.

According to an agency press release, this makeshift system uses previously installed electronic signs in some stations and basic audio announcements at others to give customers at 181st, 175th, 168th, 163rd, 155th and 145th Sts. a few minutes’ notice of incoming trains. At 181st and 175th Sts., only audio announcements will be available while at the other four stations, screens will provide arrival information as well. Riders will now how many minutes and how many stations away the next trains are.

Unlike the A Division system which receives information via Automatic Train Supervision software, this simpler system relies upon the MTA’s old signal system’s track circuits to keep abreast of train movements. As of now, the technology can provide only information on a specific track and not specific trains as ATS can do. For instance, as the pictures demonstrate, the signs will say only that a train is arriving on the express or local tracks. For stations served by one line only, this won’t lead to much confusion, but where two or more routes share the same track, the signs will be somewhat less helpful.

“This is another part of the initiative to offer real time train arrival information to our customers, but here we are going about it in a different manner using existing infrastructure rather than waiting for the installation of an entirely new communications system,” NYC Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast said. “We looked at the equipment that was already in place and we have designed a pilot that responds to Jay Walder’s call to find affordable ways to make customer improvements as quickly as possible.”

Another benefit of this system is its cost. As The Daily News reported, this pilot cost just $20,000 to install, a mere fraction of the $200 million A Division price tag. A system-wide roll-out would of course cost more, but this pilot offers up substantial savings to a problem deemed intractable a few months ago.

After the jump, more pictures of the new signs at 145th St.

Continue Reading
27 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
MTA Economics

The psychology of the $100 MetroCard

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on February 17, 2010

As the MTA acts out its political charade of threatening service cuts and the elimination of the student MetroCard program in the hopes of spurring some politicians to action, fare hikes remain the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The Authority could always attempt to avert cuts by drastically raising fares. When I last posed a fare hike solution, 78 percent of my readers said they preferred paying more to suffering through service cuts.

Yesterday, fare hikes and other more equitable funding solutions for the MTA crept back into the news. In a report for the Drum Major Institute on Public Policy, John Petro studied the potential fare hike that will come as early as 2011 and called upon the city to enact congestion pricing. Although congestion pricing remained Petro’s main focus, his fare numbers are alarming. The MTA could have to raise fares by 15 percent or more next year, leaving us with 30-day Unlimited Ride MetroCards that cost over $100.

For the MTA and for New Yorkers, that $100 mark seems to be a bit of a psychological hurdle. The agency, after all, has always had the fare option on the table, and the powers-that-be could have opted to jack up the prices of a ride years ago. By doing so, they should shift the fare burden onto the backs of their riders to a nearly unprecedented level the world over. Already, New Yorkers pay far more through farebox revenue than their international peers do for what is ostensibly a public good. Why not make the system fully dependent upon fares?

The main problem here is one that gets to the very root of the subway system. Is mass transit in New York City a vital part of city life that the government should support or is it an unnecessary luxury that should fund itself? To become self-sustaining, the MTA would have to raise fares to such a degree that ridership would necessarily decline. Many people simply would not be able to afford paying $100, $125, $150 for a monthly pass, and the per-ride cost would soar past $3. Ridership would decline, and thus, to compensate for that missing revenue, the MTA would have to raise prices even more. It would be a vicious, vicious circle indeed.

If the MTA is a vital part of city life and the state economy — which it is — then the government should be assisting it more than it does. If the MTA makes New York City possible, if the subways allow for people to live far from their offices in affordable neighborhoods in commute in over many miles for just the current swipe of a MetroCard, then the government shouldn’t be allowing the MTA’s services to slide, their fares to creep up too high or the agency’s finances to slide into turmoil.

And so we arrive at the threat of a $100 MetroCard. When the unlimited card was first introduced on July 4, 1998, the card cost $63. Today, it costs $89, and that increase is outpacing inflation by over seven percent. When the MTA breaks that $100 barrier, many people will no longer view the 30-Day as a necessity. Rather, a triple-digit price tag makes it a luxury. Even if the card remains a good deal — and it will because the pay-per-ride price continues to ride — many people will be hard pressed afford that $100 outlay every month.

In the end, as Petro details in his report and urges in a Daily News op-ed, congestion pricing should hold the solution. Implementing congestion pricing to avoid fare hikes and the end of the student MetroCard program would save a family of four $2300 a year while contributing to the overall economic and environmental health of New York City. As those prices creep ever higher and the MTA slides closer to financial disaster, it is time again to consider congestion pricing. That $100 MetroCard may be inevitable, but we can try to push it off for as long as possible.

29 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
AsidesMTA Absurdity

For Michael Jackson, a mural but no station name at Hoyt/Schermerhorn

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

In August, two months after Michael Jackson’s death, Council Member Letitia James created a stir when she called upon the MTA to name its Hoyt/Schermerhorn stop after the King of Pop. He and Martin Scorscese made the station famous when the duo filmed Jackson’s video for Bad there in 1987, and James wanted to honor the late great music star. The MTA, which has a smart policy of naming stations after nearby geographical markers, rejected her request, but still, she pressed onward in her efforts to somehow glorify Jackson at this Downtown Brooklyn stop.

Today, we learn that despite the MTA’s own refusal to name the station after Jacko, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has brokered a deal to honor Michael through some exterior art at Hoyt/Schermerhorn. The Post reports that a now-blank building facade at 45 Hoyt St. will become a mural memorializing the star. The DBP has yet to choose an artist or artistic style for their project, but it promises to be a grand display of pop music love. Now, if only Letitia James would put this much effort into securing real financing for the MTA.

2 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Moynihan Station

With TIGER grant in hand, Moynihan Phase I set to begin

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

A federal TIGER grant approved today ensures that at least the first phase of the Moynihan Station proposal will see the light of day. (Rendering via Friends of Moynihan Station)

After years of proposals, politicking and promises, Moynihan Station is finally poised to become something of a reality. Earlier today, Sen. Chuck Schumer, long a champion of the Penn Station expansion project, announced an $83 million TIGER grant for the station, and the money closes the Phase I budget gap. Construction will commence before the end of 2010.

As Elana Schor at Streetsblog DC details, the grant is part of the Obama Administration’s competitive $1.5 billion Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery program, and New York’s plan is the first bid winner. This award is a clean sign of the federal Department of Transportation’s move toward a more merit-based funding solution. “Moynihan Station is the poster child for the best way to use federal funding,” Schumer said. “It creates jobs, upgrades aging transportation infrastructure, and leaves behind an economic engine for the entire region.”

With this $83.3 million grant in place, the Moynihan Station now has a guaranteed $267 million set aside for it. The breakdown, per a press release is as follows: $110 million in previously earmarked federal funding, $35 million from the Metropolitan Transit Authority, $14 million from the State of New York, and $10 million from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

So what then does $267 million buy at the planned site of a new transportation hub? Unfortunately, not very much. Per Friends of Moynhian Station, the money will go toward:

  • Building two new entrances to Penn Station’s platforms from West of Eighth Avenue through the corners of the Farley Building;
  • Doubling the length and width of the West End Concourse;
  • Providing 13 new “vertical access points” (escalators, elevators and stairs) to the platforms;
  • Doubling the width of the 33rd Street Connector between Penn Station and the West End Concourse and;
  • Other critical infrastructure improvements including platform ventilation and catenary work.

Phase II, construction of the train hall in the Farley Building, will be independently funded and is currently estimated to cost between $1 and $1.5 billion. The Friends of Moynihan Station stress that all Phase I elements will be independently functional in the very likely event that Phase II doesn’t get off the ground any time soon.

Still, long-term advocates of the station were thrilled with today’s developments. “We’re very pleased this critical project is finally getting underway, after years of delay,” Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, said. “There is no more important project for creating needed transportation capacity in the regional rail system and for catalyzing the redevelopment of New York’s Far West Side.”

26 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Service Advisories

After the snow, mid-week travel woes on the IND

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

When the MTA called off all weekend work on February 5, the agency knew it was taking a gamble. Snow was in the forecast, but chances of a big storm coming our way were small. With service changes impacting nearly every subway line that weekend, the authority knew it would have to scramble to finish the completed work, and when the weather was milder than expected, the agency had seemingly lost its gamble.

During the past weekend, subway-bound New Yorkers saw firsthand how the decision to cancel work could impact service a few days later. The G train, for instance, was out of commission from 10:30 p.m. on Friday night until 5 a.m. this morning, a span of 77.5 hours. During most three-day weekends when service on Monday runs on a weekend schedule, the crews are called off the job on the holiday, but this past weekend, nearly every change stretched through Monday to make up for lost time.

Still, it wasn’t enough for the MTA to complete the work they needed to complete, and late yesterday afternoon, Transit announced some changes to the IND routing this week. This change was originally supposed to go into effect last week, but with the actual snowstorm, it was postponed until now. Here’s what’s happening:

As part of the signal modernization project near Chambers St., the uptown C and D trains will switch routes north of 59th St. The uptown C will run express along the A tracks from Canal St. to 145th St.; the uptown D train will run local under Central Park West from 59th St. to 145th St.; and the E will continue to make all local stops from its World Trade Center terminal to 50th St. along 8th Ave.

Transit straight-railing the switch north of Canal St., and so during this week, C trains cannot make the move from the tracks out of Brooklyn onto the local tracks under 8th Ave. Transit apologized for the late notification of this service change, and I’m sure more than few riders were in for a surprise this morning.

4 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Subway History

Turning Columbus Circle into an IRT express stop

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

When the New York City subway system was built in the early 1900s and later expanded throughout the 1930s, the route planners had a difficult task at hand. Using the city as they knew it then and the city as projected later, they had to extrapolate routes based on need. It’s tough to know in 1904 which stops should be served by an express train and which shouldn’t in 2010.

Nowhere in the system is this problem more evident than along the West Side IRT — known familiarly as the 1, 2 and 3 trains — at 72nd St. and 59th St./Columbus Circle. With its too-narrow platforms and mid-avenue stationhouses, the 72nd St. station has been a mysterious express stop nearly since day one. It’s not at a major above-ground landmark, and it’s not a fork in the system as 96th St. is. There, the express trains head east and toward the Bronx while the 1 continues north under Broadway. At 72nd St., the stop simply serves as a way point between the run from 42nd St. to 96th St.

Meanwhile, 13 blocks to the south sits Columbus Circle. In 1904, it served as the entryway to Central Park, but today, it is a bustling hub of people with commercial and office space to the west and tourists to the east. As a major transfer point between the 6th Ave. and 8th Ave. IND routes and the West Side IRT, Columbus Circle is the seventh busiest subway station in the system. In 2008, over 20 million straphangers passed through the station. Despite the obvious popularity, it is not an express stop.

Those who frequent the Columbus Circle station have long wondered about the lack of an express stop, and the perfect storm of conditions in the mid-1950s nearly turned 59th St. into an express service. Let’s jump into the archives to relive that bit of subway history. In 1954, Robert Moses, then head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, oversaw the construction of the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle. Despite his lukewarm support of and outright hostility transit throughout much of his career, this time, he wanted something from the subways and asked the Transit Authority to consider turning 59th St. into an express stop. He nearly got his way.

In August 1954, as construction commenced on the Coliseum, the TA supported a $172 million work plan for 1955. In that plan included an $11.6 million project that would have turned Columbus Circle from a local-only stop into an express station along the IRT. The work would have been massive. The two local tracks would have been pushed out with the platforms remaining in place, and an express bulb in the middle of the two express tracks would have been constructed there. The track layout would have resembled the current design of Penn Station along the IRT. Meanwhile, the express platforms at 72nd St. would have been walled off, and that station would have become a local-only stop.

The plans themselves though never made it off the drawing room floor. The TA approved a contract for the work in March 1955 after the Board of Estimate had approved the plan the previous December. By 1956, though, as work hadn’t yet begun, TA head Charles Patterson had already come out against the plan. He wanted to simply lengthen the five-car platforms at 59th St. and believed that to be adequate to serve the ridership growth anticipated by the opening of the Coliseum.

That lengthening was, of course, how this story ends. The IRT platforms were lengthened in the 1950s to accommodate longer train cars, and 59th St. was no exception. The express plans were discarded. Every few decades, a civic group calls upon the MTA to explore adding an express stop to 59th St. In 1997, the American Institute of Architects passed a resolution with detailed plans — available here as a PDF — calling for that express stop modification. It went nowhere.

Now, Columbus Circle is amidst a massive renovation that won’t bring express service to it along the IRT but will make the station nicer and easier to navigate. For now, we’ll just have to watch as those express trains zoom past a logical stopping point, and we’ll blame August Belmont for his lack of foresight. Mostly, he was right about where to place those IRT stops, but at 59th St., the future proved him wrong.

68 comments
-1 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
MTA EconomicsMTA Politics

Times: Albany must find a ‘lasting solution’

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

Calling New York a failed state in its current iteration isn’t too much of a stretch. We have a governor with no public support, and a State Senate that can’t stop its in-fighting long enough to pass any sort of legislation. When they do get their collective acts together for a long enough period of time to get something done, the results fall far short of what is promised as is the case with last May’s MTA funding package.

Over the weekend — unfortunately on a Saturday when fewer people are around to read it — The New York Times took Albany to task for its MTA failures. In a scathing editorial, the Gray Lady called upon Albany to find a better solution for the MTA. With a budget shortfall of nearly $800 million, the MTA is on borrowed time, and The Times succinctly outlines the sources of the shortfall. Tax revenues are down; the payroll tax brought in $200 million less than expected; fare revenue is down by $100 million; Albany cut $143 million; the upcoming TWU raises will cost the agency $100 million. It is a perfect storm of bad circumstances.

The Times though is concerned with the machinations in Albany right now. Writes the paper:

Now Governor Paterson is threatening to make things worse. In a clear pander to suburban voters in this year’s governor’s race, he is calling for cutting the payroll tax in seven suburban counties around the city while increasing the payroll tax in the city’s five boroughs.

A Legislature that is heavy on representatives from New York City is unlikely to go along — at least on raising the city’s taxes. The danger is that legislators, also facing voters this year, will decide to cut suburban payroll taxes without making up the loss to the transportation authority.

Some advocates are suggesting the agency shift some of its federal stimulus money — supposed to be reserved for maintenance, subway construction and upgrades — to use for operations. Transportation experts warn that if that happens, the system would deteriorate. Remember the ratty old subways of 30 years ago?

Albany must come up with a lasting solution for the M.T.A. That means leaving the payroll tax alone and finding new revenue sources — starting with tolls on Manhattan’s free bridges that could raise an estimated $600 million a year. It may mean raising fares, although that should be a last resort. It will mean supporting the new Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman, Jay Walder, including in his plans to lay off workers as he streamlines the system.

What it should not mean is doing away with free passes for needy students. Both the state and city will have to contribute more to help pay $214 million a year to help keep these students in school.

The transit system that feeds the New York City area is crucial to the welfare and commercial vitality of the entire state. Governor Paterson and the Legislature have a responsibility to make sure it has the money it needs to keep working.

In a nutshell, this editorial tracks closely with everything I’ve been writing over the last few months. Albany must find a better solution. It’s time to renew the push for East River Bridge Tolls. It’s time for a sensible solution for transit in a city more heavily dependent on its subways and buses than any other in the nation.

4 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Load More Posts