AsidesCapital Program 2010-2014

Inside the mysterious Capital Review Board

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 4, 2009

During yesterday’s Walder confirmation hearings, transparency was the name of the game. While the MTA has increased its level of public participation and now puts every single budget document on its website, our State Senators cannot be bothered with such a reality, and they spent much of the hearing asking Jay Walder how he would improve the MTA’s transparency and public image issues. It’s typical Albany machinations.

Meanwhile, an in ironic twist of fate, Mobilizing the Region profiled the Capital Review Board yesterday. This four-member oversight committee, with one representative appointed by the Senate, Assembly, Governor and Mayor each, will have the final approval over the MTA’s proposed $25.5 billion five-year capital plan. While we can watch the MTA Board and participate in public hearings, as the Tri-State Transportation Campaign notes, the CRB is practically opaque. Its members do not have to reveal why they voted the way they do, and its decisions often do not make sense. Transparency might earn headlines during a confirmation hearing, but apparently, Albany is more adverse to open government than the MTA. Shocking, I know.

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MTA Politics

Inside the confirmation hearing circus

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 4, 2009

After this summer, it’s really hard to take the New York State Senate seriously. In the eyes of the nation, they have become a laughingstock, and in the eyes of this New York City-based straphanger, they are generally anti-home rule and anti-transit.

Yesterday, as I briefly mentioned late in the afternoon, the Senate finally got around to starting the confirmation process for Jay Walder, Gov. David Paterson’s nominee to head up the MTA. Walder was nominated when the highly qualified Elliot Sander was pushed out in a bit of Senatorial back-stabbing and unnecessary politicking. The MTA didn’t need a new head to straighten itself out; the state needed a new government. But I digress.

Some of the hearing in Mineola was for show. The Senators took issue with Walder’s compensation — pegged at $350,000 and with a golden parachute of around $800,000 should he be kicked out within a certain time period. It took a chart showing the compensation of transit executives around the nation from RPA head Robert Yaro just to get these Senators to come to grips with the fact that a $350,000 for the CEO and Chair position of an agency the size of the MTA just isn’t that much.

After the compensation issue passed, the Senators moved on to what they do best: sounding like idiots. Newsday’s Alfonso Castillo was on hand:

Walder, a Queens native, avoided details on how he would address several of MTA’s specific problems and said he still has “a lot of catching up to do” after being away from New York for 14 years. But he cited his record as Transport For London’s managing director of finance and planning as a hint of what he could do at the MTA.

He listed his top accomplishments there as putting together the city’s largest capital investment plan in transit in recent history; expanding bus service; developing an innovative and cost-reducing fare collection system; and putting together the transportation plan that helped London secure the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Walder agreed that the MTA needs to become more credible and accountable and rebuild its relationship with policy-makers and customers, and show that the ever-increasing cost of operating the agency is being put to good use. “Simply put, the MTA has the responsibility to present information that matters and present it in a way that people can understand,” he said.

While most of the lawmakers and public speakers suggested that Walder was the man for the job, Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset) said he was disappointed with what he heard from Walder, especially his support for a recently imposed payroll tax for employers – the foundation for the state’s bailout of the MTA, which faced a $1.8-billion deficit this year. Walder called the tax “absolutely essential” for keeping the MTA running. “If I had to vote today, I tell you right now, my vote would be no,” said Marcellino, who called the tax a “job killer.”

What Marcellino fails to understand is that underfunded transit scaled back to the barest of services and train frequency would be a real job killer. The increase in traffic and congestion coupled with the lack of transit options would kill the entire region’s economy. Heaven forbid a Senator actually know anything about the words coming out of his month.

Meanwhile, Walder also said during the hearings that he would not push for congestion pricing. Unfortunately, the article in The Post doesn’t explore why he said this, but Walder should not be making that promise right now.

In the end, I wish Walder had been more open. He’s had nearly two months to get through that catching up, and he should have some answers as to how he will address the MTA’s problems. We can’t afford for him to learn on the job. Once the Senate votes on his confirmation on September 10, he has to hit the ground running with Albany’s support or without.

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AsidesMTA Politics

Senate begins Walder confirmation process

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 3, 2009

Politicker NY’s Jimmy Vielkind was on hand in Mineola this morning as the New York State Senate finally got around to starting the Jay Walder confirmation process. In the first report from the circus sideshow, Vielkind notes that the issue of compensation dominate the conversation. Apparently, our illustrious state senators are worried that $350,000 is to high an annual salary for someone overseeing such an extensive public transit agency. In testimony you can read here as a PDF, Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, supported Walder and defended his compensation package.

The Senate still plans to hold one more hearing on Walder. This one is set for Tuesday in Harlem, and the governing body will vote on the nomination on Sept. 10. Meanwhile, the MTA continues to be an agency adrift with a $10 billion hole in its capital plan and both short- and long-term economic concerns. We’ll just keep on waiting though for the Senate to respond to these challenges.

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MTA Economics

Petro: Where is the Bloomberg money?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 3, 2009

It’s hard these days to miss Mayor Bloomberg’s call to reform the MTA. His brochures land in my mailbox, his ads on my TV. His plan — details here — has become a ubiquitous attempt to tap into populist unrest with the MTA. Nothing he offers is too ground-breaking; much, such as the F express, is old hat; and all of it requires more money than the transit agency has.

Yesterday, John Petro of the Drum Major Institute for Urban Policy, took Bloomberg to task for exactly that last problem. While the mayor can call for MTA reforms until he is blue in the face, if he doesn’t give the MTA more money to enact these reforms, his calls will come off as nothing more than the pandering of a politician.

Noting that the mayor doesn’t really have enough control over the MTA or its Board to effect the changes in his proposal, Petro highlights the one thing the mayor does control: the city’s substantial capital budget. He writes:

The capital budget is huge–$60 billion dollars over ten years. It includes a wide range of different city capital needs, like school construction and rehabilitation, expansion and repair of the sewer and water systems, and housing preservation and development. It also includes money for mass transit, but not nearly enough.

The Mayor’s capital budget allocates a measly $60 million a year toward mass transit. This equals about one percent of the MTA’s capital budget, which is much less than the city has allocated to the MTA in the past. Historically, the city’s contributions equaled about ten percent of the MTA’s capital budget.

The MTA has said that it needs about $100 million every year from the city to support the transit system’s program of rehabilitation and expansion. Why is the Mayor shortchanging the city’s mass transit system? If the Mayor is keen to improve mass transit in New York City, he should begin by making a larger commitment from the city’s huge capital budget.

From 2005-2009, the city was contributing much more to the MTA. But that money went towards the #7 line extension, a project that will be a huge boon for real estate developer Related Companies. The #7 line will be extended to the Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s far west side, where Related Companies has plans to build office and condo towers. (This is the same Related Companies that refuses to pay living wages at the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment in the Bronx). Meanwhile, communities in the outer boroughs continue to deal with rapid population increases and inadequate levels of service.

I’ve argued before that Albany and the federal government need to step up to the plate to fund long-term investments in the city’s mass transit system. For New York City to meet its full potential, we need to expand and improve our current levels of mass transit service. The federal government has prioritized highway and road projects over transit projects, and the Mayor, as well as the state’s Congressional delegation, need to lobby Congress for a more significant contribution to New York City’s mass transit system. After all, New York is the center of the largest metropolitan economy in the country and mass transit is the backbone of that economy. But the Mayor also needs to get his priorities in order. The city will be devoting $8.9 billion to roads and bridges over the next ten years, but less than one-tenth that amount to transit. In a city where most people don’t drive, these priorities seem out of whack.

No further comments, your honor.

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Service Cuts

Thompson blasts station agent elimination plans

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 3, 2009

While the MTA’s Doomsday budget with fare hikes and service cuts for all is but a memory, one aspect of the plan — the reduction of station agents throughout the system — remains set for a Sept. 20 rollout. On that day, the MTA will begin phasing out station agents through attrition, and eventually, the system will be leaner the payroll and quite possibly meaner for straphangers fearing for their safety at half-empty stations.

As it became clear after the Albany bailout passed that the MTA would still be cutting these agents, I’ve looked skeptically at their roles in the system. In my non-verified opinion, these station agents provide the illusion of safety. They can’t stop crime and are forbidden from leaving their booths to assist passengers in need. They can provide directions, place phone calls and just sit there as a deterrent presence.

During the build-up to these staffing cuts, the MTA has pursued this line of thinking as well. Straphangers support the agents, but the MTA has claimed that agents field on average less than a handful of support requests every hour. They are, says the transit authority, largely superfluous.

Our city comptroller disagrees. William C. Thompson has written to the MTA Board a scathing indictment of the MTA’s internal report on the station agent program. While the letter, as of this writing, isn’t up yet on Thompson’s website, Heather Haddon has more:

An internal MTA study used to justify the closure of station agent booths across the subway system is “faulty” and “defective,” according to city Comptroller William Thompson.

In a letter sent to the MTA board Wednesday, Thompson blasted the agency’s reasoning in closing 105 booths manned by red-vested station agents later this month, countering many of the MTA’s arguments and the way the survey was conducted. “The report appears to have been written … with the goal of demonstrating that the (station agent) program is a failure,” he wrote…

Thompson’s office said it found that the station agents were busy, helping passengers a total of 820 times during the observation period. Workers assisted riders every three minutes at more than a third of the stations. The transit survey also said that agents did not deter crime, with felonies in the system down drastically since 2002. But Thompson argued that the report did not address misdemeanor crimes like theft or harassment, which are more common than felonies.

I’ll reserver further judgment until I have a chance to review Thompson’s charges, but if rigorous, his claims would give me pause. The MTA is going to save $16 million through 2010 as they eliminate these station agents. If Thompson’s charges hold water, the city could easily see those savings vanish through inefficiencies and an increase in subway crimes — including vandalism.

The station agents are indicative of a larger problem with running a system such as New York’s. Because the city is open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, the subways must be too. Because the track mileage is vast, the system is relatively open, and controlled access points — along with people to man those points — are relatively scarce. The MTA can only cut back so many services, so many station agents, before the cuts take a collective toll on the safety, security and stability of the subway system.

As the station agents hit the chopping block in less than three weeks, the MTA will engage in a real-life experiment in subway security. Can the subways operate without the station agents? Can they operate efficiently with them? We’ll find out, but this debate is far from over.

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Public Transit Policy

The DMV fees hike in perspective

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 2, 2009

The car lobby in New York State is ramping up its rhetoric this week as driver licensing and registration fees jumped significantly on Tuesday. The hikes, passed earlier this year as part of Albany’s efforts to save the MTA, are significant — 60 percent for licensing fees and 140 percent for registration charges — and motorists aren’t happy.

Newsday’s Alfonso Castillo spoke to a few disgruntled car advocates this week who, in the words of Robert Sinclair of the AAA Auto Club of New York, bemoaned “being made scapegoats for the state’s insolvency.” He continued, “It wouldn’t be so bad if the money were going toward motorist-related issues.”

Of course, Sinclair would never admit it, but the fees are going toward motorist-related issues. The fees are going toward a mass transit system that is vital to the health of New York City. They’re going to a system that keeps the roads clearer than they would be and contributes to a healthy environment for everyone. Those are most decidedly “motorist-related issues.”

Throughout the state, politicians looking to secure votes are speaking out against the fee hikes. Politicians, of course, will always speak out against the fee hikes, but so far, none of them have taken up Gov. David Paterson’s challenge to propose another way to generate this much-needed revenue. Congestion pricing, as always, remains on the table.

Personally, though, I side with the politicians but for different reasons. Unlike Kemp Hannon, a Republican from Garden City, I do not subscribe to the believe that “the use of a car is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” Plenty of New Yorkers — millions, in fact — do not own cars and lead very successful lives. I do think, however, that licensing fees are at the same time too steep and not steep enough.

In December, when Comptroller William Thompson issued his call for increased fees, I examined his proposal with skeptical eye. He wanted to bump driver licensing fees up from $50 every eight years to $50 every year. For a mandated form of government ID, I thought this charge to be excessive.

In the end, though, the fee hike was far less onerous. Instead of paying $50 for an eight-year renewal, drivers in the region serviced by the MTA have to pay $80.50 for an eight-year renewal. Car registration rises from $44 every two years to $105 every two years. In effect, then, my driver license costs $10.63 a year while I pay $1056 a year to ride the subway (12 Unlimited 30-Day MetroCards at $88 a piece). In that regard, the state is practically giving away driver licenses for next to nothing. Maybe Thompson’s proposal isn’t as burdensome as I thought.

The real solution is, as I mentioned, a congestion fee: Drivers should be charged for the driving they do in areas serviced by mass transit and the social and environmental costs that driving accrues. We shouldn’t pay more for our identification cards just because politicians can’t challenge the vocal car-driving minority.

One day, the MTA will rely on congestion pricing to thrive, and the City will rely on it to become a cleaner and easier-to-navigate metropolis. For now, though, we shouldn’t give AAA spokespeople a pass for their complaints about “motorist related issues.” It just doesn’t ring true.

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New York City Transit

Alan Kiepper, one-time NYCT head, dies

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 2, 2009

In 1990, as the New York City subways were beginning their long, slow climb back to respectability, then-Chariman Robert Kiley brought in Alan F. Kiepper to oversee New York City Transit. Kiepper made his name in Atlanta where he helped develop and build the MARTA system, and to New York’s subways, he tried to bring charm and poetry.

Kiepper, 81, died today of a ruptured aortic aneurysm, and The Times’ Mike Grynbaum remembers Kiepper’s tenure in the city:

He became president of the New York City Transit Authority in 1990, overseeing the nation’s largest subway and bus system, which was struggling to emerge from a long decline. Mr. Kiepper grappled with major fires, accidents and crimes, including an explosion and fire in a Brooklyn subway tunnel in which two passengers died, a derailment in the Union Square station that killed five people and the death of Brian Watkins, a young Utah tourist killed while trying to defend his parents from robbers.

Mr. Kiepper also hired William J. Bratton, a transit police chief from Boston, to run the New York Transit Police. Mr. Bratton led an aggressive campaign against fare beating and robbery. (He left after about 21 months to lead the Boston Police Department and later led those in New York and Los Angeles.)

Subway crime fell by 50 percent during Mr. Kiepper’s tenure. Ridership also rebounded to its highest level in two decades, and Mr. Kiepper pushed for cleaner trains and placed additional managers in the stations.

A lifelong lover of poetry, Mr. Kiepper introduced the popular Poetry in Motion program that placed verses alongside advertisements for skin treatments and technical schools in subway cars and buses; the program ended last year. He worked with the Poetry Society of America to start the program.

Kiepper was one of the key figures in the MTA’s current push to bring its stations and system into a state of good repair, and the transit community lost a key voice today.

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MTA Absurdity

Moving station inspections beyond the ‘eyeball’ test

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 2, 2009

7th Ave. Tiles 1

The 7th Ave. station on the IND Culver Line would probably pass the MTA’s Eyeball Test. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

Generally, I try to give those running the MTA and its subdivision the benefit of the doubt. It’s not easy to oversee a 24/7 transit network that includes three different rail divisions, a whole slew of buses, thousands of track miles and hundreds of stations spread out over 12 counties and parts of two states.

Sometimes, though, news comes along that makes me wonder just what is going on inside the upper reaches of 2 Broadway. Take, for instance, the welcome news that Transit is going to ramp up station inspections in the aftermath of the ceiling collapse at 181st St. I’ve been pushing this angle of the story for the last two weeks, and as a daily rider of the subways, I’m comforted to know that Transit will be making a concerted effort to ensure our collective safety.

That’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is how they used to it. Before Aug. 16, Transit inspectors would employ the “Eyeball Test.” To paraphrase a friend of mine, that’s how I generally assess the security of subway ceilings as well. Anyway, Heather Haddon has both the good and absurd of it:

The MTA will conduct tougher station inspections in the wake of last month’s ceiling collapse at the 181st Street stop on the No. 1 train, transit officials said Tuesday. Engineers are beefing up NYC Transit’s protocol for station inspections to include new technology that can “spot potentially serious latent defects,” transit spokesman Charles Seaton said. Officials yesterday did not further elaborate.

Currently, inspectors primarily eyeball a station to determine its soundness. After the ceiling collapse on Aug. 16, relying on visual inspections is “obviously inadequate,” NYC Transit President Howard Roberts stated in internal communication Friday…

Transit advocates are hoping the MTA will start using devices that can detect water damage through sound waves. Water seepage is believed to have played some role in the ceiling collapse, which knocked out service for two weeks.

So just to recap: The MTA has been assessing the structural integrity of its 105-year-old tunnels by eyeballing a station to “determine its soundness.” Stunningly, it took a chunk of ceiling to fall on the tracks for Howard Roberts to realize just how “obviously inadequate” that method is.

Over the last few years, with some solid leaders in place, Transit and the MTA have made strides to improve their public image. The agency’s finances are far more transparent than they used to be, and Roberts has led an era of improved customer relations for Transit. Still, vestiges of the old ways — of secrecy, of lean times, of barely getting by — still seep through the progress. This is one of those times.

As Transit inspectors fan out to look for those “serious latent defects,” I wouldn’t be surprised if the news about structural problems in the subway system picked up over the next few months. It may be enough to attract more money for transit investment, but somehow, the MTA will have to counteract this new story. After all, if the best test those running our trains have involves just looking at ceiling, I have to wonder how any station passed that test and what the MTA is going to find with its more in-depth examinations.

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View from Underground

When it was a train: The Brown Diamond R

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 1, 2009

BrownR

Generally, spotting an R train running from 95 Street in Brooklyn to Continental Avenue in Queens isn’t an occasion for a photograph. The R makes that run numerous times a day.

A few weeks ago, Evan Schweitzer spotted something off-kilter on the R. Instead of the familiar yellow circle with a black letter, his R train featured a white R in a brown diamond. What, Evan wanted to know, was going on here? The answer reaches all the way back to the current origins of the New York City subway’s naming conventions.

In the early 1960s, the current R train went by the moniker of RR. A few years later, after the Chrystie St. connector opened, the norther terminus of the RR shifted to Astoria, the current end of the N/W runs. A sister line used the Nassau St. Loop and went by the designation RJ.

Things grow slightly confusing after that. A few months after the RJ debuted in the late 1960s, the line was truncated with a northern terminus at Chambers St. and a southern terminus in Bay Ridge. From then until May 1985, this route was also known as the RR. In 1985, the MTA eliminated double letter designations and referred to this Bay Ridge-to-Chambers St. rush hour-only service as the R with a brown diamond.

The last brown diamond R train ran in on November 20, 1987, and since then, the MTA has worked to streamline route designations. Outside of the 5 trains in the Bronx and the A in Queens, no longer do two distinct routes share the same number or letter. Now and then, though, the roll signs are rolled incorrectly, and those brown diamond blasts from the past rear their heads.

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View from Underground

Underground Ethics: Pregnant on the subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on September 1, 2009

Lynn Harris wants you to know that she, while eight months’ pregnant, offered to give up her seat to an old man, and the old man refused. It has become such a part of her New York City identity that she felt obliged to put it in her bio to her latest online entry in The Times’ Complaint Box series of rants about Big Apple life.

As with most entitled New Yorkers these days, Ms. Harris, a native of Lexington, Massachusetts, lives somewhere near me in Park Slope. Her piece was about her sheer inability to find a seat on the subway while she was pregnant. Of course, she blames everyone else but herself in a scathing passive aggressive indictment of the supposedly selfish behavior underground:

Thank you so much, everyone, for offering me a seat on the subway when I’ve got my daughter in her stroller or my son in his Bjorn. (Or both.) I would like to rest for a moment; it’s awfully kind of you, indeed. And yes, by all means, you can help me get the stroller up the stairs. Thanks again.

I have just one question: Where were you people when I was pregnant? Oh, right. You were sitting comfortably in your seats. While I stood. In August.

It happened every time, with both pregnancies. When the train arrived, I’d exaggerate my waddle, brush a sweaty wisp from my forehead, emit a weary sigh and enter, gazing around for a seat or a good Samaritan. What I’d see: blank stares, bald spots, newspaper headlines. Headlines held up to hide faces. (Headlines that might have read “Chivalry Dead.”) No one budged. Time and again. No one budged.

If anyone did give up a seat — which, O.K., did happen, on days when there was a partial eclipse, a unicorn sighting and alternate-side parking suspended, or when I finally started asking for one — the donors appeared in this order of likelihood: (1) older woman, (2) younger woman, (3) minority man.

That’s right, folks: No white man every offered to give up his seat to Ms. Harris even during the sweltering months of August when temperatures on the subway cars are routinely held at 70-72 degrees. As you can tell from the tone of the first four paragraphs, the rest of the piece is just as tedious, but it does raise one of our many interesting underground ethics questions: Should people give up a seat to a pregnant lady or should the pregnant lady ask for a seat?

In the comments to Ms. Harris’ piece — mostly devoted to the millions of New Yorkers who do actually give up their seats — the jury is out. Many seem to believe that straphangers should willing cede seat space to someone visibly pregnant. Others though warn about the pregnancy faux pas. What if the woman in question is rather rotund but not pregnant?

Instead, the solution rests in the hands of the pregnant woman who should ask for a seat. “Excuse me, but may I please sit down?” Who could refuse that from someone potentially pregnant? Not I, and not the vast majority of straphangers I know.

In the end, Ms. Harris never ventures into this territory of underground behavior. She is content to simmer passive aggressively while supposedly few subway riders gave up seats for her. She brings out her frustration in a snark-filled column online, proving that she is no better or worse with her underground manners than those who sit with their noses buried in books and ears deep in iPod while the pregnant ladies all must stand.

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