Second Ave. Sagas

The MTA faces a $10 billion deficit. What does this mean and how can the agency close this gap?

by Benjamin Kabak July 13, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on July 13, 2020

The MTA has taken a $10 billion hit due to the ongoing pandemic.

Ten years ago, during the depths of the Great Recession, the MTA faced a budget deficit we then considered massive. At the time, the agency was staring down a hole of $900 million, and to close the gap, the MTA implemented a series of staffing reductions, contract renegotiations and service cuts. Amidst the current coronavirus crisis, as the MTA is facing a $10 billion deficit over the next 18 months, I’ve been thinking more and more about the 2010 service cuts, how costly they were for commuters and how little money they ultimately saved the MTA.

The history of the 2010 cuts is a tortured one, and I’ll spare you the back-and-forth. In broad strokes, the MTA passed a budget at the end of 2009 that required the agency to implement cuts in 2010, and the cuts ran deep. As I detailed at the time, Transit eliminated two subway lines — the V and W trains — rerouted the M, pared back the G, and instituted new load guidelines so that trains wouldn’t be considered crowded enough to warrant more service until even more riders were crammed aboard. The cuts to the city’s bus network were even worse with over 40 routes partially or fully eliminated outright and service on others reduced to bare bones. Bus ridership, which was around 2.3 million per weekday prior to these cuts, has been in a downward spiral since then, bottoming out at 1.77 million per weekday last year.

For all of the inconvenience, added crowded, slower travel and worsened bus service, the MTA saved barely any money. The subway service cuts generated $16.6 million in annual savings and the bus reductions $51.2 million. The service cuts also lead to less revenue as the most inconvenienced riders will find other way to travel. Ultimately, then, cutting — at least on the service side — yields pennies while sacrificing frequency and travel times, key drivers of the utility of transit.

A $10 billion budget hole

The MTA’s current crisis makes 2010’s budget deficit look like a walk in the park. Since March, the MTA has lost most of its riders, most of its toll-payers, much of its advertising revenue and a lot of the transit-supporting tax revenue. As the agency officials detailed in a presentation to Board members last month, the MTA faces a $3.75 billion deficit this year even after a $4 billion infusion of CARES Act cash and approximately $6.6 billion next year. Senior leadership has engaged in a media blitz, lobbying constantly for federal funding (though most of the TV appearances have been local to New York where the Congressional delegation already supports a federal transit bailout rather than national). At this point, though, one “Fox & Friends” appearance by Pat Foye would be more likely to move the right needle than ten more NY1 hits.

This week, the MTA Chair took his message to The Wall Street Journal, as Paul Berger, the paper’s transit beat writer, took a deep dive into the financial state of the MTA:

The nation’s largest transit system teeters on the edge of an unprecedented financial crisis as it emerges from the new coronavirus pandemic, leaving it with few options other than imposing major spending cuts and borrowing billions of dollars, officials say. Patrick Foye, chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in a July 8 interview that the only way to stave off bleak measures is for the agency to secure $3.9 billion in federal coronavirus bailout funds in the coming weeks. Without the money, subway, bus and rail commuters could be consigned to diminishing services for years. “None of the choices are good, which is why the federal funding is essential,” he said.

The state-controlled authority, which runs New York City’s subway and bus systems as well as two commuter railroads, has almost exhausted $4 billion it received as part of the first federal coronavirus bailout in May. The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives included a further $3.9 billion for the MTA in a new $3.5 trillion relief package passed the same month. Mr. Foye said he remains cautiously optimistic about receiving the money soon, even though the bill has languished in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.

Senate Republicans, who return from recess July 20, have rejected the bill and remain divided on how much to spend and what to spend it on. Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday downgraded the MTA’s credit rating to BBB+ from A-. It said the first round of bailout funds will be exhausted by August and described the authority’s hopes of receiving a next round of federal funding as fading. Even if the authority receives the money, it would last only through the end of this year.

So what comes next?

The MTA cannot cut its way out of this hole…

A Riders Alliance study paints a bleak picture of the MTA’s doomsday scenario.

If the Senate fails to act in the coming weeks, the future is bleak for the MTA and for transit in New York City. The Riders Alliance determined that without federal funding, the MTA would have to generate cuts 20 times more impactful than the 2010 service reductions, and the advocacy group painted a picture of a Doomsday scenario in which half of all subway service is eliminated. Needless to say, New York City as we know cannot exist or rebound with half of its normal subway service, and the report is written to help riders conceptualize the depths of the MTA’s budget crisis. It’s not in any way, shape or form predictive of the future. Yet.

In the past, as Betsy Plum, executive director of the Riders Alliance, told The Journal, the MTA’s financial woes have worked themselves out, but this time, the deficit is simply too large for it to work itself out. “We may truly be in a moment where it cannot work itself out without dramatic injury to the people who most rely on transit,” Plum said to Berger.

Dramatic injury isn’t an outcome anyone wants. MTA leaders hope to avoid pandemic-related service cuts, and fare hikes — other than those already scheduled for 2021 — are off the table. After all, as with service cuts, a 500% fare hike would make the system unaffordable for millions of people who rode pre-pandemic and would exacerbate the city’s financial and affordability crisis. The hole is simply too deep for the MTA to use its usual set of tools to balance its budget, and we should view the MTA as a public good, required during a pandemic and vital to the city’s success all other times. It should always be funded that way.

…Which is not to say they shouldn’t try

Yet, as we well know, the MTA is not a paragon of efficiency, and the current crisis should cause the agency to do some soul-searching on its runaway cost problems. After all, if the MTA cannot reform its spending practices now, amidst the worst budget crisis in 50, if not 91, years, when can they expect to do so?

Most commentators do not seem to grasp the depths of the dollars ands have urged modest business-as-usual approaches. The Citizens Budget Commission issued a new report this week, and while they acknowledged the depths pf the crisis, their five recommendations sounded like every other CBC recommendations on transit spending we’ve heard over the last few decades. “Achieve greater efficiencies”? “Prioritize planned capital projects”? “Optimize service levels”? Borrow money? Those seem like fine suggestions for closing a $100 million budget gap but seem woefully inadequate for some 10 times that size, let alone 100 times, as the MTA currently faces.

Other ideas have more legs. While the MTA may not be able to cut $6 billion and still operate any trains or buses, the savings are there for the taking as The LIRR Today discussed last month:

There’s not $10 billion worth of things to cut, but there’s plenty of room for cost savings, and you don’t even have to look all that hard. Instituting proof of payment on the railroads and eliminating conductors will on its own save about $411 million per year. If LIRR and Metro-North were both forced to cut down their vehicle maintenance costs to the nationwide average without impacting reliability, that would save $347 million per year. Just making LIRR operate as efficiently as Metro-North (not a high standard, by any means) would save $121 million per year. Going to One Person Train Operation (OTPO) on all subway lines, a practice ubiquitous elsewhere in the world, would save about $300 million yearly. There are certainly no shortage of ways to further reign in overtime spending. And that’s just scratching the surface…

Internally, the MTA has options too. Sarah Feinberg, the interim president of NYC Transit, wants to cut spending on pricey consultants as she reorganizes the massive workforce powering subways and buses, and the MTA has outlined what it could do if the federal funding doesn’t come through. To that end, the MTA could use congestion pricing revenue (if the program is approved by the feds) to bond out operating expenses; reduce the workforce; freeze wages; borrow more; or, as a last-gasp measure, cut service and raise fares. It shouldn’t come to that end though as the city can least afford it.

In the end, the MTA will not and cannot go bankrupt. The state will backstop the debt if push ever comes to shove. But as capital and cash dry up, the feds should come to transit’s, and to cities’, rescue, and the MTA should try to explore real and substantive cost control while pushing hard for that bailout. New Yorkers can’t afford an NYC without transit and neither can the country, whether the Senate wants to admit it or not.

July 13, 2020 18 comments

MTA Economics Public Transit Policy

Numbers Update: City budget shows misplaced transportation priorities; MTA sits on the brink of fiscal collapse

by Benjamin Kabak July 7, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on July 7, 2020

I’m a few days late with this post, and you’ll have to forgive me for the delay. I suffered a bad wrist fracture 2.5 weeks ago in a bike crash in Bay Ridge and had surgery 12 days ago. I haven’t been able to type too well since then. So right now I’m dictating this post and making corrections as I go (and there may be typos ahead). Anyway, we have a lot of news to catch up on, and none of it is very good.

Amidst a budget crisis brought on by the pandemic, it’s easy for me to say that my pet causes should always be funded. After all, we each have a tendency to think that what we know and what we believe in is what’s best for New York. But everyone has their own ideas on how to improve the city, and when money isn’t plentiful, these ideas will compete with each other for the few dollars that are available.

That said, during lean times, the goal of any budget and the goal of the mayor and the goal of the City Council should be to create a more livable city, one that is welcoming to everyone and accommodates its residents first and foremost as we all attempt to do the work to bring back the vibrant city we know and love. That effort should involve investing in ways to get around that accommodate more people and faster travel. That means supporting bus lanes, investing in safer infrastructure for people, and not sinking money into low-capacity, high-subsidy modes of travel. Unfortunately, that’s not what New York City’s new budget does by any means.

When the dust settled on the NYC budget negotiations last month, most of the good programs were cut or slimmed down considerably while the mayor continued to pour tens of millions of dollars into his ferry system. It is a budget whose burden falls heavily on those who can least afford it and one that betrays Bill de Blasio’s original campaign slogan of “A Tale of Two Cities.” Instead of bridging the gap between the two cities that embody New York, this budget widens it.

Fair Fares funding slashed by $65 million

The most notable cut was to the popular Fair Fares program — a half-fare transit subsidy for low-income New Yorkers. The budget eliminated $65 million in city funding for the program, reducing the program by about one-third. While politicians called this a right-sizing due to decreased transit usage during the ongoing pandemic, advocacy groups were dismayed. They had fought long and hard for the subsidy and felt betrayed by the administration.

“It was an effective, important program,” de Blasio, defending the cut, said last week at a press conference. “I think the whole underlying concept of the program got just disrupted profoundly by the coronavirus and we’re not going to see that turnaround in the short term.”

The Riders Alliance and the Community Service Society, two advocacy groups instrumental in pushing for this program in the first place, issued a strongly worded statement condemning the cuts:

“Community Service Society and the Riders Alliance are deeply outraged that funding for Fair Fares was slashed by $65 million in the FY21 budget agreement announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio today. This happened without so much as a word of warning or debate.

At a time of unprecedented, widespread unemployment, especially among black and brown New Yorkers and younger people trying to enter the workforce, Fair Fares provides a transit lifeline to job search, medical care and other necessities of life. Especially now, as the economy starts to reopen, half-price subway and bus fares will be even more important to both essential and returning workers.

Fair Fares was just being fully rolled out to all New Yorkers at or below poverty with the launch of a robust ad campaign in late January before the pandemic hit. Yet, Fair Fares is already helping 192,801 city residents who have enrolled. With so many of our fellow New Yorkers newly experiencing severe hardships, struggling to pay the rent, feed their families and find work, we expect the need for Fair Fares to grow, not shrink in the months ahead. We will need public transit ridership to return for our city to function, and New Yorkers who have lost jobs and depleted any savings will need to be able to afford the fare.

The mayor has appointed advisory groups to offer suggestions on forging a more equitable recovery. Here’s one: on behalf of our coalition of more than 70 organizations, we urge you to ensure adequate funding for the continued expansion of Fair Fares.”

For what it’s worth, the advisory groups mentioned in the statement were supposed to issue recommendations pre-reopening for the city to implement as it moves through the reopening phases, but as we are now firmly ensconced in Phase 3 and have seen no reports from any of these groups, it’s safe to assume the administration is keeping any recommendations to themselves. But I digress.

The MTA took the rare step of issuing a statement as well, echoing the advocates’ concerns. “The Mayor’s decision to slash the Fair Fares program will make it more difficult for tens of thousands of customers who rely on mass transit to afford to get to jobs, school and work as New York continues to reopen,” NYC Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg said. “At a time when the MTA is hemorrhaging money at record levels due to the COVID-19 crisis, this cut sets us back and will further hurt our ability to provide critical services to New Yorkers.”

But the cuts to Fair Fares weren’t the only transit-related budget reductions. The de Blasio Administration went forward with its plan to cut around $6 million from its Better Buses program, and we learned this week that Corey Johnson’s Streets Master Plan, an aggressive proposal to rethink New York City streets, may also be delayed. Yet, as Johnson noted to The New York Post, cutting or slow-walking these plans at this moment during the pandemic shows a lack of clear thinking and a lack of proper response from the administration, a topic I explored in a post last month.

“The benchmarks laid out by the streets master plan were passed into law for a reason and they should not be delayed, especially now,” the City Council Speaker said. “We can’t let a painful budget slow down our city’s reimagining of what public space and mass transit look like.”

And so what wasn’t cut, at least not to the same degree? Well, the ferries, of course. Despite plummeting ridership, a subsidy that has long gone toward those who can most afford to pay a higher fare, and a general lack of vision on true city-wide transportation, de Blasio cut only $10 million from the ferry subsidy, and the administration still plans to spend over $63 million on the boats at a time when other investments would deliver far more transit bang for the buck. So over the last few weeks and months, the mayor has resisted a real open streets plan, failed to expand the bike network at a time of skyrocketing demand, allowed for only 20 miles of bus lanes when the MTA had requested 60, and cut Fair Fares by a third for maintaining his own ferry program. These are misplaced transportation priorities if ever we’ve seen them, and they do not show a mayor willing to make New York easier to travel around, better for the people who are here, or more attractive to people who may want to come here.

The MTA’s dire fiscal picture

Let’s shift gears and look at the MTA’s own fiscal crisis. I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the MTA’s looming economic disaster. Following an initial infusion of cash from the feds to the tune of nearly $4 billion, the MTA is yet again facing a fiscal cliff, and there is no indication the Senate is willing to act. Ridership is only been about 20% of normal, and the agency expects to need between $7.5-$10 billion over the next 18 months to stay afloat. The feds have shown no signs that another bail out is coming, and the US government is slow walking approvals for congestion pricing as well, so the MTA and the state cannot yet generate its own money through a traffic fee.

During its June board meetings, MTA officials said they have no choice but to request federal funding. They cannot cut their ways out of a hole this large. Even with cost savings and cost reforms, the loss of so much revenue has created a deficit that’s simply too deep to close without government funding. The agency has said pandemic-related fare hikes are not on the table, but budget cuts are and service cuts may be. The giant $51 billion capital plan, including all of the accessibility upgrades that advocates and Andy Byford had fought so hard to secure, are on hold, and the MTA could use some of that money, if it materializes, to close the operating budget gap. Agency leaders have repeatedly gone on TV to request more federal aid, and Nicole Gelinas recently penned a piece in The Times sounding the alarm warning that absent federal funding, cities could be mired in fiscal and transportation crises for years. She makes the case for significant operating assistance from the federal government, and I strongly urge you to read her piece.

So where does that leave us right now? We have a mayor who doesn’t understand the urgency of a mobility crisis he could address, let alone the way to address it, and we have an MTA bleeding money as it continues to run full service despite low ridership. We have a federal government that’s unwilling to step in and do it it must to save its cities, its economy, and its citizens. We are, in effect, playing the worst game of chicken as the money is set to run out at the end of this month, and no one at the federal level wants to take the reins and lead.

I wish I had better news, and I wish we were talking instead about the ongoing capital work that was supposed to kick off this year. Instead, we are waiting with bated breath for the dam to break. Will the city, under Bill de Blasio’s poor transportation leadership, find itself in mired in a mobility crisis? Will the MTA have to start paring back service to nothing because its budget is in tatters? The outlook is bleak, bleaker than it’s been for the MTA and New York City in quite some time. We can’t make it through on New York Exceptionalism alone this time around.

July 7, 2020 11 comments

Public Transit Policy

A lack of urgency underscores de Blasio’s paltry coronavirus response

by Benjamin Kabak June 24, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on June 24, 2020

Idle boats serve as the perfect metaphor and great backdrop for any Bill de Blasio press conference. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

The coronavirus isn’t over. The pandemic rages on. And it does so in uniquely specific ways. While the threat of severe respiratory illness and risk of death looms over us all, we remain in all-encompassing public health crisis that manifests itself in the form of space. To reduce transmission risks and keep populations healthy, we need space. There is an urgency to get more people more space, and while that’s a lesson quickly learned by people paying close attention to the virus over the past few months, it is one Mayor Bill de Blasio and most of New York City’s political leadership still treat as an inconvenience rather than with the urgency it deserves.

The space we need is easy to identify. It’s much safer to be outside, masked, and generally a few feet away from other people. Though I am skeptical that transit in and of itself isn’t safe, it’s much safer for everyone to be spread out, for commutes to be staggered, for crush-load subway conditions to be avoided. This means buses should be prioritized above all other traffic and a spike in biking accommodated through the creation of a safe and wide-reaching network of pop-up protected lanes. Giving people more space and encouraging diversity in mode share allows for a functional and socially-distant city, and cities the world over have implemented these measures.

But not New York. Though we seem to have slowed the virus and our numbers are strong, the pandemic continues until a vaccine or cure can be found, but the city isn’t acting as though the problem is pressing. There is no urgent in the middle of a situation that demands it.

This lack of urgency manifests itself in the way space hasn’t been reallocated for more productive uses this spring. New York has an abundance of outdoor space — 6000 miles of roadway and multiple lanes across many of those miles — but most of it is taken up by inert cars parked for free on public land. The mayor at first didn’t want to do anything about this unequal allocation, even as people were stuck inside their tiny New York apartments, starved for fresh air and space. It wasn’t until the City Council forced the issue that the Mayor agreed to a paltry 40 miles of open streets in May and just a handful of additional miles this week after a needless four-week pause, and his implementation leaves much to be desired. A half a mile here, three-tenths of a mile there, and it all adds up quickly to 60 miles while open streets don’t connect in any discernible network, and neighborhoods that are home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have gotten little-to-no extra space. If you had to design the worst possible open streets network far too slowly, the Mayor’s plan would qualify.

For a brief few minutes in early June, it seemed that some space would be allocated properly. For weeks, transit advocates and the MTA had begged the mayor for bus lanes. Bus ridership had remained relatively strong throughout the darkest days of the pandemic, and buses — with open windows creating natural ventilation — felt safer to many riders. As New York City finally sat on the verge of Phase 1 of the state’s careful and deliberate reopening process, I wondered why Bill de Blasio ha developed a transportation plan ready for Day One. After all, advocates, envious of cities around the world that had reimagined their streetscapes, and the MTA wanted 60 miles (or just 1% of city streets) dedicated to new bus lanes.

A few hours later, Bill de Blasio granted the city just one-third of what the MTA requested. As I wrote, I found the plan unsatisfactory and lacking, a symbol of the mayor’s commitment to refuse to work with the MTA while doing the bare minimum to make New York City a better place. It’s been over two weeks since the Mayor unveiled his plan, and nothing has happened. He called for 20 miles of busways and bus lanes by October, including a handful this month, but New York City has seen none of the promised lanes materialize or work progress. The NYC Department of Transportation has unveiled no details regarding design or a firm timeline for implementation. Simply put, there is no urgency from anyone involved when all of these lanes should have been implemented weeks ago or at least hours after the Mayor’s announcement.

Meanwhile, even projects that appear urgent end up slow-walked by a mayor afraid of his own shadow. Last week, Brooklyn Paper reported that the administration was considering converting a significant portion of the Brooklyn Bridge into a bike lane, but three days later, DOT walked back this report, claiming only the staffer had “misspoke“. Streetsblog later reported that DOT will study converting road space on the bridge for the umpteenth time in recent years.

The Queens Ribbon is a poorly designed concept that masquerades as a solution for an urgent problem that requires nimble and fast resposnes instead.

It’s a disappointing outcome, but an expected one, at a time and demand for biking and safer bike infrastructure is off the charts in New York City. But Bill de Blasio seems intent to ignore this demand, acting again without any of the urgency of the situation demands. Instead, we get rendering porn masquerading as a real serious idea (like the so-called Queens Ribbon) to placate the advocates. Even if we take this idea, which was profiled in The Times yesterday, seriously, it doesn’t fit the situation. The design itself is insufficient with lanes that are far too narrow and suffer from the same design problems as the Brooklyn Bridge bike and pedestrian path. And it’s a plan that will take years to realize when we don’t have years. The urgent response would re-allocate lanes on bridges across the East River for bike and pedestrian use, and it would do it tomorrow. We’ve already burned far too many weeks fighting for scraps, and the current administration has given no indication of giving anything more.

The lack of urgency doesn’t stem only from de Blasio. It is an all-encompassing ethos that infuses his administration. While speaking on a panel hosted by City & State last week, DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg kept finding excuses to avoid implementing well-designed bike lanes or rapid-deployment bus lanes. New York, she said, isn’t Paris, a city where Anne Hidalgo has led an effort to implement a network of hundreds of miles of bike lanes in response to concerns over travel in the age coronavirus. Of course, New York and the Paris metropolitan area are of nearly equal size and density, but Trottenberg’s words are just excuses. She loves to find reasons to avoid doing anything rather than coming up with plans to act. We’re not Paris because Trottenberg and de Blasio don’t think it’s important for NYC to emulate the best of Paris, and we’re not even Lisbon.

The missing urgency isn’t focused only around surface transportation either. As Nolan Hicks and David Meyer detailed in The Post last week, de Blasio has no plan for any part of the city’s gradual reopening or imminent entry into Phase 2. He had no plans for outdoor dining; he had no plans to save the city’s struggling restaurants and bars, the heartbeats of so many neighborhoods; he had no plans until yesterday to open beaches as temperatures creep into the mid-80s; he had no plans until a few days ago to safely open playgrounds so kids could get outside; and he clearly has no plans for school in the fall. Even when he does implement plans, as he did for restaurants just a few hours before Phase 2 began, the plans were the bare minimum and provided little city support for a key economic activity. A few weeks ago, de Blasio told New Yorkers to “improvise” on getting to work and traveling around. Apparently, that’s the guidance for managing a city of 8 million through a public health and economic crisis infused with urgency.

The mayor, though, isn’t the only one slow-walking urgent transportation needs. The City Council has yet to act on legislation legalizing e-scooters in NYC and may not take up the measure until after the city budget is passed. Bronx Rep. Fernando Cabrera penned an op-ed in Crains New York last week calling for urgent action in the face of the pandemic, but during the that City & State panel, Council Speaker Corey Johnson said the Council wouldn’t take up e-scooter legislation for a few more weeks. The Council has since approved thee-scooter legislation, but the measure won’t take affect until March, nine months from now and well beyond the time when scooters could be used to lessen the pandemic related commute concerns. Amidst an emergency of immediacy, the city government continues to treat travel and transportation as business-as-usual, subject to the whims of a slow process designed to frustrate improvements. E-scooters should be legalized immediately to accommodate the urgent need for people to move safely and quickly around the city.

Ultimately, this lack of urgency isn’t new to New York City. The mayor never treated transportation, including his supposedly signature Vision Zero initiative, with urgency, and he didn’t treat the coronavirus with any urgency before the lockdown began in March. Despite having the entirety of NYC’s municipal payroll at his beck and call, he has set up panels of experts to come up with suggestions or recommendations for reopening, and some panel members have told me the mayor isn’t even obligating himself to follow them. It’s all a charade to slow-walk a response to a virus that demands urgency. We need more bus lanes; we need a bike lane network; we need a plan for travel and a plan for city businesses to survive the summer. We need to treat rescuing the city and responding to the virus in real-time with the urgency of a crisis, and right now, our leaders are simply failing us.

I originally wrote a version of this post last week and published it for the supporters of my Patreon. As a periodic reminder, 2nd Ave. Sagas is fully reader funded, and I can continue to bring these post to you with your support. Please consider joining as a supporter.

June 24, 2020 5 comments

MTA Economics

MTA Budget Woes Headed Off the Rails as Subways and Buses Gear up for Phase 2

by Jose Martinez, THE CITY June 23, 2020

written by Jose Martinez, THE CITY on June 23, 2020

This story was originally published on June 21, 2020 by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning. Jose Martinez and THE CITY have since published a follow-up after MTA officials warned of “financial calamity” as federal bailout money is set to dry up in July and ridership remains just 20% of normal.

The MTA’s financial troubles run far deeper than the dramatic coronavirus-driven drop in revenue from fares and tolls, new documents show.

The transit agency has fallen short by hundreds of millions of dollars in projected income from the dedicated taxes and subsidies that account for almost half of its nearly $17 billion annual operating budget, according to MTA records reviewed by THE CITY. But even as up to 300,000 people return to work Monday for the second phase of the city’s “reopening” — likely pushing daily ridership past the one-million mark for the first time since March 20 — MTA officials this week are expected to declare the agency is nearing financial ruin and in need of a bailout.

“The MTA has gone broke literally saving New York and it needs federal funds,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “The economy can only come back when transit comes back.”

The funding through May 2020 has come up short from a variety of sources, records show. Those include:

$94.4 million less than projected because of weaker-than-expected real estate activity in the city from the so-called “urban taxes” on property transfers and mortgage recording taxes
$37.5 million less than expected from MTA Aid, which includes fees for licenses, motor vehicle registration and auto rentals
$30.3 million less than anticipated from the for-hire vehicle surcharge applied on taxi and ride-hailing app for trips south of 96th Street in Manhattan
$19.4 million less than projected from the Petroleum Business Tax on petroleum businesses operating in New York State.

Ridership, Toll Revenues Down

Those grim figures are on top of farebox revenue that, according to preliminary figures, last month generated just $53 million — or 86% less than the $343 million that had been projected at the beginning of the year by the MTA, which pinned the shortfall on state travel restrictions put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

On June 17, the last day for which MTA ridership figures are available, there were nearly 945,000 passengers in the subways and close to 975,000 on the buses. Prior to the pandemic, there were typically more than 7 million riders on weekdays.

Riders walk past a “how to wear a mask” MTA sign at the Times Square station on June 10, 2020. (Hiram Alejandro Durán/THE CITY)

Bridge and tunnel revenues at the nine crossings controlled by the agency have also taken a hit, with the revenue for April coming in at $73.5 million dollars — $104 million less than what had been forecast by the MTA. “It’s a serious cash-flow problem — everybody knows they’re not getting the money from the ridership,” said Rachael Fauss, a research analyst with Reinvent Albany, a watchdog group.

The numbers became public as MTA officials prepared to issue a bleak financial forecast at the agency’s Wednesday board meeting, where they will again make the case for another $3.9 billion in emergency federal funding. In March, as the pandemic began to clobber its finances, the MTA secured a $3.9 billion dollar commitment in emergency federal funding. That money arrived last month, but advocates say it will only go so far.

Huge Fare Hike Floated

The Regional Plan Association has raised the possibility of a $9 base subway and bus fare to fill an enormous budget gap. MTA board members warned that the return of riders to the transit system could be short-circuited if more drastic measures are needed to stem the financial losses. “If the MTA starts to talk about service cuts, they will lose the trust of New Yorkers forever,” said John Samuelsen, an MTA board member and international president of the Transport Workers Union.

The transit agency must also contend with how to pay for cleaning costs that have surged during the pandemic and the indefinite nightly shutdown of the subway from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. “I would rather see additional funding such as a gasoline tax of two, three cents, instead of service cuts,” said Andrew Albert, an MTA board member who represents the New York City Transit Riders Council. “It wouldn’t even be felt, but it would bring in much-needed money into the coffers.”

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.

June 23, 2020 2 comments

Buses

Thoughts as the Mayor unveils just 20 miles of new busways and bus lanes as NYC’s pandemic response

by Benjamin Kabak June 9, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on June 9, 2020

With his NYC Ferries as a backdrop, the mayor announced only 20 miles of new bus lanes to keep the city moving as NYC starts to reopen. (Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Did Bill de Blasio prove me wrong? Of course not; that’s a rhetorical question with an obvious answer. But just a few hours after I wrote about his lack of plan to accommodate transportation amidst New York’s reopening, the Mayor unveiled 20 miles of new busways and bus lanes that will be added to city streets by October. In doing so, Bill de Blasio managed to fail to meet the MTA’s request by two-thirds and the city’s borough presidents’ by 50 percent. He missed a prime opportunity to drastically reshape miles of city streets amidst an ongoing pandemic where giving people more space is of utmost importance, and while better than nothing, de Blasio’s plan is the bare minimum any mayor could have done. And, oh, the mayor announced, as an aside meriting one sentence of his time, that the 14th St. Busway is now permanent.

First, the details, in handy chart form.

As you can see, the city is getting 3.5 total new miles of busway treatments and 16.5 miles of new bus lanes. The ridership numbers are a bit fudged as, for instance, the end-to-end daily ridership of the M14 was 28,000 before the pandemic, and the 0.8 mile segment from 1st Ave. to Ave. C accounts only for a portion of that. Still, during his comments, the mayor spoke about improving bus service for 750,000. Each rider will benefit from better service, but bus prioritization along only parts of some routes mean most riders will never experience the difference.

As to timing, these lanes will roll out month-by-month through October. The Flushing busway and bus lanes along 14th St. and 149th St. will arrive in June, followed by the Jamaica Ave. and 5th Ave. busways and Hylan Boulevard bus lanes in July. August will see a busway enter service on Jay St. and bus lanes on Merrick Boulevard while the 181st St. busway isn’t due until October. The mayor said the busways will be “similar” to 14th Street, and his press release talks about offset bus lanes in other places. But if similar to 14th St., the busways will still allow cars for a block at a time and the successes will rely heavily on enforcement, whether in person or automated. That’s the plan; let’s get to the thoughts.

The Mayor is still talking past the MTA

Last week, the MTA asked for 60 miles of bus lanes throughout the city. They have to ask because the city controls its own street space, and their request came a few weeks after the city’s cadre of borough presidents requested 40 miles of lanes. The mayor responded with 20, and his lanes and the MTA’s own requests hardly seem to align.

Here's how the city responded to the MTA's request. They're just continuing to talk past each other.

? E 149th
? E.L. Grant
? Tremont
? Fordham Rd
? University

? Flatbush Ave.
? Bay St.
? Richmond Terrace
? 181 St.
? Main Street

? Archer Ave
? Livingston St.

— Second Ave. Sagas (@2AvSagas) June 8, 2020

Many of the bus treatments the mayor announced yesterday weren’t even among those requested by the MTA, and even more confounding is how thoughtful the MTA’s request was. DOT, for instance, has bus lane designs for E.L. Grant and University Ave. on ice, just waiting for the go-ahead to proceed. The MTA seemed to be considerate of DOT in making its own request, but the mayor hasn’t responded in turn. When asked by Streetblog NYC’s Gersh Kuntzman about the differences between the MTA’s request and the city’s plan, the mayor responded by not answering the question:

I’m someone who likes to see progress and celebrate progress and then keep making more progress. So my attitude is this is a major step. The fact that we have proven in a way that – you know, the history probably better than me. I don’t think a busway like 14th Street was successfully achieved previously in city history. Maybe I don’t know my facts, but I think I’m right. The fact that today we’re saying 14th Street is now permanent, five more coming in. It is the beginning of something really positive, obviously between the busways, the Select Bus Service, all of these approaches have been working and that opens the door to a very positive future for New York City. And this is a great time to do it because we got to give people confidence to come back to mass transit. So we’re going to do everything we can do, but we’re always going to tell you what we think we can do right now. And then as we see the next opportunity to do more, we’ll of course do more.

It’s a fine answer for a run-of-the-mill Monday three years ago but one that falls apart under scrutiny in the midst of a pandemic.

A Day Late and A Few Months Slow

To that end, why did the mayor wait until Monday morning, hours after the city entered Phase 1 of the restart, to announce new bus treatments? The timing of this announcement shows a lack of urgency on the part of the mayor and the frustration the city has felt with his lack of plans. The time to announce post-PAUSE busways and bus lanes was April, when city streets were empty, and New Yorkers knew they needed more space on transit. Buses, after all, have remained popular throughout the past few months. The city then could have used April and May to implement these lanes so that they were serving essential workers during lockdown and in place as restrictions lifted. That’s what every other city has done, but instead, we’ll get a few lanes this month and a few more by the end of the summer. If we’re in the middle of a public health crisis, you would never know it from the mayor’s slow and deliberate approach.

‘New York City can have a little busway, as a treat’

While route miles are not always strong indicators of quality, the mayor’s plan is diminishingly small. With approximately 6000 miles of city streets at his disposal, the mayor has opted to put busways on 3.5 of them and buslanes on another 16.5, for a grand total of 0.33% of city streets. Under this perspective, even the MTA’s more expansive ask represents only 1% of city streets, and we should be thinking even bigger right now. Simply put, there is no vision to reimagine street space; these are just scraps under the table of the private automobile which has long dominated the way we allocate public space in New York City.

That said, these lanes are good starts. We have long needed bus lanes across 181st Street, and untangling even just 0.3 miles of Flushing would do wonders for a heavily-congested area. As Transit Center noted, “Short busways can make a big impact if they carve a path through intense traffic congestion.” Still, these short treatments that well-run city would have implemented four years ago seem far too meager for the moment. Brooklyn, after all, a borough that is a city unto itself with 2.3 million people, is getting all of 0.6 miles of a busway as close to Manhattan as possible. This does very little to facilitate travel across greater distances.

Feeder Routes Amidst a Pandemic

Along with the distances is the problem of design. Generally speaking, we want to design transit in this COVID-19 moment to encourage dispersed usage. We want more people on buses so that subways are emptier and social distancing easier. By and large though, these new bus lanes bolster the feeder-route nature of the city’s bus network. The Flushing treatment, for instance, makes getting to and from the 7 train easier, as does the 181st St. route, but outside of destinations in Flushing or for NY-Presbyterian-bound commuters, these new lanes do little to get people from where they live to where they work without relying on the subway. What we need is a massive temporary re-think of the bus network that enables interborough connections in ways the current bus network doesn’t. That’s not a de Blasio per se, but the current crisis exposes and exacerbates the limits of NYC’s bus network.

Getting the mayor to commit to transit is always a fight

The mayor makes improving transit in New York City an exhausting fight. For months, advocates, politicians and even the MTA called for more and more busways and faster. The mayor finally relented, and when he did, it was to grant everyone a fraction of their initial requests. So the politicians and advocates have to line up to issue their praise and then continue fighting for even more miles of busways. This is how the mayor, who ran on an agenda of equality, treated Fair Fares: He refused to embrace it and then did the bare minimum when forced to. It’s exhausting for everyone involved in the advocacy and planning, and it’s no way to run or improve a city.

The mayor had an opportunity to think big, help New Yorkers get around faster and more efficiently during a pandemic, and he did the bare minimum weeks too late. If that’s not Bill de Blasio’s transportation approach in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.

June 9, 2020 6 comments

MTA Politics

The MTA has a transportation plan for NYC’s reopening. Why doesn’t Bill de Blasio?

by Benjamin Kabak June 7, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on June 7, 2020

As New York City enters Phase 1 of its reopening, the MTA wants every transit rider to wear masks.

Bill de Blasio is taking a page out of Marie Antoinette’s playbook as New York City loosens pandemic restrictions. While international peer cities have prioritized buses and rolled out hundreds of miles of temporary bike lanes to avert bumper-to-bumper traffic while accommodating commuters who may be hesitant to ride subways in light of social distancing guidelines, the mayor has simply said to his city, “Let them drive cars.” The MTA has a plan to make travel as safe as possible and has asked for rapid deployment of 60 miles of bus lanes, but with business opening in a few hours, the mayor hasn’t used the tools available to him to prioritize transit, leading many advocates to worry about crushing traffic that grinds surface transit — and NYC’s buses — to a halt.

New York City is nearly alone among is global peers in responding to the coronavirus lockdowns. While early studies indicate that subways are not major transmission risks, health officials have spent the past few months urging people to maintain distance from each other, and cities around the world have responded by taking away space from private automobiles. Rapid deployment of bus lanes and networks of bike-only corridors have sprung up in cities from Paris (which is adding hundreds of miles of bike lanes and has removed cars from Rue de Rivoli) to London to Washington, DC, and although the mayor pledged to create an expansive open streets network, the 40 miles we have are disjointed, largely near parks and leave large swaths of New York City without open space or better travel options. They do little to create a network for travel and seem oriented instead toward the block party model, the only way the mayor seems to believe New Yorkers outside of cars use streets. Our new bike lanes consist of a handful of barrels along Flatbush Ave. that peter out a few yards south of the Prospect Park Zoo. A revolution this is not.

In a few hours, after a tragic and frustrating spring that saw New York City largely paralyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the city will begin the slow process of reopening. Phase 1 of the New York Forward initiative doesn’t look all that different from the past few weeks, but as curbside retail pickup is officially condoned and construction and manufacturing work across all sectors gets the green light, the city anticipates approximately 400,000 New Yorkers will head back to work. The MTA has a comprehensive plan to get everyone moving, but as the subway’s reputation has taken a hit during the pandemic, bus ridership has outpaced subway travel. Meanwhile, the city isn’t doing its part to guard against an expected uptick in driving or create incentives for people to leave their cars at home while accommodating modes of travel, such as buses and bikes, that have seen an explosion of use in recent weeks. The MTA has a plan. So why doesn’t the mayor?

The MTA’s Plan: Mask, masks, masks, more service and regular cleaning

Generally unfairly in my view, the MTA has borne the brunt of blame for the scope of New York City’s coronavirus outbreak. An early report by an MIT economist that relied upon a typical causation/correlation error blamed the subway for spreading COVID-19 within New York City, and by the time the science settled around a different answer — that simply riding transit isn’t a major transmission risk and that ubiquitous mask-wearing can mitigate a significant portion of individual risk — the reputational damage was done. People were scared off transit; the MTA opted to shut down overnight service to address the city’s failure to respond to constant complaints regarding homeless New Yorkers taking up permanent residence on the trains; and all non-essential workers heard for weeks upon weeks while sitting at home was how “dangerous” the subways were.

Since then, we’ve learned that surfaces do not present a source of transmission for the novel coronavirus, and numerous other cities — Taipei, Seoul and Hong Kong among them — have welcomed back crowds on transit without increases in COVID-19 infection rates. The MTA has studied what these cities have done, but New Yorkers collectively are loathe to look to international cities for guidance. This is New York, dammit, and it’s our way or the highway. That level of New York Exceptionalism is one of the city’s shortcomings these days, and it’s led the de Blasio administration to continue to yell at the MTA over social distancing requirements. The subways, they claim, must have six feet of space for each New Yorker, a physical impossibility that would leave the system at around eight percent total capacity and a unscientific request at that.

But the MTA, to its credit, is trying, and on Friday, the agency unveiled a 13-point plan to welcome New Yorkers back to the subways and buses we were riding in droves earlier this year. The damage to the collective psyche caused by the ongoing pandemic cannot be discounted, and the MTA wants to make riding the trains as safe and as stress-free as possible. Some people, they recognize, won’t come back to transit quickly or until we have a vaccine and others won’t need to as white collar jobs will remain remote for the foreseeable future.

Floor markings at subway stations will help riders maintain distance from each other where possible.

The 13 points are of varying degrees of seriousness and practicality. They count a data dashboard showing day-by-day ridership trends, which I’m very much looking forward to, but serve little public purpose. Most New Yorkers don’t know how to translate ridership numbers to crowd conditions, and the dashboard is not going to present granular hour-by-hour numbers. Still, the top points are key: The MTA is going to restore all subway and non-Manhattan bus service to pre-pandemic levels though trains will still not run from 1 a.m. – 5 a.m.; the agency will install hand sanitizer throughout the system and floor markings to guide riders away from each other; the cleaning initiatives will continue; and most importantly, the MTA will be aggressive in pushing for all riders to wear masks while on buses and subways.

If you want to get a sense of the down-and-dirty of the cleanliness plan, you can peruse the presentation, but overall, it’s a solid one. The real key is of course the masks, and on Sunday, the MTA self-reported 92% mask compliance among its ridership. The agency surveyed 23 different subway stations in four boroughs and counted 43,709 out of 47,599 riders wearing masks. As the agency noted in its press release, public guidance suggests that 70% mask compliance is “impactful” and “essential protection” requires a 95% threshold. “The goal is to see 100% of our customers wearing face coverings,” New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg said. “It is the single most important thing that riders can do to protect themselves, their follow commuters and our employees.”

Have I mentioned you should wear a mask on transit? Anywhere, that’s where we are with buses and subways and anything the MTA itself can control. How, you may wonder, is the city responding? Not particularly well.

A fight over space and silence on bus lanes as the mayor suggests New Yorkers “use their cars more”

For months, city residents have asked the mayor for more space outside. We need space to walk, space to run, space to bike, space for businesses to open up, space to travel, space to ride buses, space to sit and spaces to simply be outside where COVID-19 transmission risks are significantly lower than they are indoors. The mayor has responded with next to nothing. We don’t know when or how restaurants will be able to expand into outdoor space, and as I mentioned, our open streets program has been subpar. But the mayor has truly dropped the ball with regards to transit.

The issue exploded in earnest last week when private negotiations between the MTA and city spilled into public view due largely in part to the mayor’s refusal to recognize scientific reality. The MTA put forward a request that the city contribute 1 million masks to the MTA to hand out to those riders who have “forgotten” their own masks and staff stations with social distancing volunteers. The mayor called upon the MTA to do a lot of things it was already going to do (such as restore service) and then suggested the MTA limit capacity on buses and trains to ensure social distancing, called upon the agency to “skip stops if over capacity” and close stations when needed. Each of this on its own is an impractical way to run a transit system, and together, betray a lack of scientific understanding. If everyone is wearing masks, the six-feet bubble — which isn’t a magic one — can be loosened, and skipping stops creates crowd conditions on platforms without allowing people off trains at an even pace to reduce onboard crowding.

The mayor’s ideas simply lend credence to the belief the subways are unsafe, and instead of welcoming people back to transit, the mayor seems intent on scaring them away. In fact, numerous times over the past ten days, Bill de Blasio has suggested that New Yorkers, most of whom do not own cars, simply drive. “In the short term, do I believe people will use their cars more or for hire vehicles more in the next few months of transition?” the mayor asked himself at a press conference last week. “Yes, I do, and we can handle that because we’re going in phases. Obviously, there are so many fewer people moving around than usual, there’s so many fewer people going to work, we can handle that in the short term.”

This is flawed logic and a fatal position for the mayor of New York to espouse as our streets simply can’t handle much more traffic. According to Apple’s tracking, requests for driving directions have returned to the pre-COVID-19 baseline, and while those numbers are an imperfect substitute for the number of people driving, anyone out on the streets recognizes that auto traffic is up substantially in recent weeks. If more people drive to work in the coming days, the streets will grind to a halt. We likely won’t end up with carmegeddon because people won’t drive if there isn’t a benefit to it, but because we haven’t prioritized transit, we will have a system where people who can drive have more flexibility and those who rely on the bus will find commute times lengthened and travel speeds slow.

Will ridership return as fast as the MTA projects? A city commitment to bus lanes would help.

It doesn’t have to be this way, and the MTA recognizes that potential reality. The agency, however, cannot act on its own, and to that end, they requested the city fast-track 60 miles of bus lanes. If the city implements the lanes, the MTA said it will handle enforcement and speed up signal prioritization efforts. It would be a win-win for the city, and as we learned last fall and as a bus-speed increase during the depths of the recent shutdown illustrated, just getting cars out of the way does wonders for NYC bus service. Specifically, the MTA requested the following bus corridors “as quickly as possible”:

Our priority corridors for new or upgraded bus lanes include:

In the Bronx: East 149th St.; the E.L. Grant Highway; Tremont Ave.; Fordham Rd.; University Ave.

In Brooklyn: Flatbush Ave. between Ave. H and Empire Blvd.

On Staten Island: Bay St. between the St George Ferry Terminal and Canal St.; Richmond Terrace between the St George Ferry Terminal and Jersey St.

Our priority corridors for busways include:

In Manhattan: 181st St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.

In Queens: Main St. between Kissena Blvd. and Northern Blvd.; Archer Ave. between 146th St. and 168th St.

In Brooklyn: Livingston St. between Court St. and Flatbush Ave.

Feinberg had more to say:

In this difficult time, it’s more important than ever that we transport customers as quickly and effectively as possible. With city streets virtually empty in the last few months, we saw average bus speeds rise and commute times drop dramatically. Now with ridership steadily growing (from ~400,000 at our lowest point to 715,000 on June 2) and car congestion returning, we must act to maintain these improvements for our essential customers.

We have seen firsthand how dedicated bus lanes can dramatically improve the customer experience. Following the establishment of the 14th Street Busway and SBS service last year, ridership increased by 14 percent and travel times improved by 24 percent. We want to emulate that success on other lines wherever possible, as soon as possible.

We are all in agreement that New York and its world-class transit system will not only survive this unprecedented worldwide pandemic, but the rebound will make us smarter, better and more efficient. Creating more dedicated bus lanes is one way to make that happen.

The mayor’s response has been next to nothing. He earlier told New Yorkers to simply “improvise” how they get to work as though he doesn’t have the ability to make commutes faster and more spacious. A mayoral spokesperson told Politico New York that the city and MTA have chatted generally. “We have discussed bus lane expansion with the MTA, and we look forward to their commitment to increased service on bus lanes the City creates to safely serve more New Yorkers,” Mitch Schwartz said. But that’s not an answer that gives anyone comfort. The mayor has had months to prepare for Monday, and he simply hasn’t picked up the ball or ran with it. While the mayor has been preoccupied lately, a competent city executive could walk and chew gum, though lately the city has been left wondering if he can even walk, let alone chew gum or do both at the same time.

Setting aside how the city should be paved in bus lanes, these pop-up lanes will help de Blasio achieve his dreams of social distancing on transit. Buses are outside, and riders can pop open those windows for ventilation. Faster buses give New Yorkers more options and make it easier to spread potential riders across modes of transit, away from crowded subway, and away from cars that will choke city streets. But instead, we’re getting nothing. New York City opens in the morning without a network of new bike lanes and without any additional busways. It’s a failure of the de Blasio administration that compounds years of mayoral transportation policy failures.

A lot has been happening this week, to say the least. And we’re getting ready for a very big moment tomorrow as Phase One of the Re-Start begins. So I want to make life a little easier for all of us: Alternate Side Parking is cancelled tomorrow Mon June 8 thru Sun June 21.

— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 7, 2020

Nothing summed up this failure better tonight, and a tweet from the mayor that seemed to equate living through the last week of protests with a parking giveaway and made the mistake of assuming everyone in the city owns a car they park on the street. The ration is currently climbing, but that’s little comfort for those of us who are facing a summer of travel discontent because the mayor couldn’t be bothered to prioritize bus service during a pandemic, as so many other cities have done instead. Let them drive cars indeed.

June 7, 2020 3 comments

Rolling Stock

After unexpected uncoupling, Transit pulls Bombardier’s R179s from service again

by Benjamin Kabak June 3, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on June 3, 2020

A photo of the R179 that unexpectedly uncoupled last night.

Just four months after restoring the R179s to service following significant door safety concerns, the MTA had to yank Bombardier’s faulty subway cars from service again on Wednesday. This time, the issue was an unexpected uncoupling that occurred shortly after 1 a.m. to an uptown A train entering Chambers St. The issue first came to light late last night via a Twitter post, and pictures of the incident were available via Reddit.

Sooo the whole back of this train DETATCHED@MTA pic.twitter.com/kWRxY2EINd

— Hupaul Camacho (@traplordhuey) June 3, 2020

New York City Transit Interim President Sarah Feinberg sent out a statement about these troubled cars early this morning:

“Early today, just after 1 a.m. a northbound A train became separated between the sixth and seventh cars of the ten-car train as it entered Chambers Street Station. Ten passengers were safely evacuated with no reported injuries to customers or employees. At this time, we believe this to be an isolated incident, however, I am launching a full investigation, and out of an abundance of caution, the entire R179 fleet is being pulled from service until further notice. We have redeployed additional spare cars and minimal impacts to service are anticipated. This marks the latest unacceptable issue with one of Bombardier’s R179 cars. Customer and employee safety is New York City Transit’s North Star. We will not compromise one inch on safety. We will not return the fleet to service without certainty and validation that all cars are fit for passenger service – period.”

The R179s, which break down more often than older cars, have been problem-plagued from the start. Manufacturing problems and early testing failures delayed delivery of the full order, and the door safety issues caused then-NYCT President Andy Byford to pull the entirety of the fleet for a few weeks. It’s not clear yet how this will impact the MTA’s ability to deliver more service as NYC enters Phase 1 of the un-PAUSE process on Monday, and it is yet another issue for the Bombardier rail cars, which many consider to be lemons. In January, the MTA vowed to attempt to recover some money from Bombardier due to the ongoing issues, and debarment remains on the table. Bombardier is currently investigating this latest issue.

June 3, 2020 15 comments

International Subways

Andy Byford named London’s new Transport Commissioner

by Benjamin Kabak May 27, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 27, 2020

Andy Byford will start as the head of Transport for London on June 29.

Train Daddy has a new family.

Andy Byford, the popular former New York City Transit President who resigned in January amidst a bitter dispute with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will be London’s next Transport Commission, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Board of Transport for London announced today. Byford will oversee an agency that is facing its own pandemic-related economic crisis but also one that has a holistic role in shaping London transportation and a vision for it that far surpasses being implemented in New York City these days. It’s a natural fit for a transit technocrat who won over a New York City public distrustful of the MTA, and New York’s loss is London’s gain.

Byford left the MTA at the end of February and left New York a few days later to renew his visa. He ended up stranded in his native Plymouth, England, as travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders descended upon the world. Now, he’ll stay in England, rejoining the organization where he started his back in 1989.

“I am delighted to be taking up the role of Commissioner and to have been chosen to lead the organisation where I started my transport career over 30 years ago,” Byford said in a statement. “In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, all transport authorities around the world will need to reimagine how their services and projects contribute to the safe and sustainable re-start of the social and economic lives of the cities they serve. It is a huge challenge, but I know that Transport for London has some of the best people anywhere in the world and we will meet these challenges and will together help build an even better city for everyone.”

The new TfL head earned the moniker Train Daddy from his fans in New York City who grew to know a New York City Transit head who took responsibility for the system’s failures and wanted to fix the subways and buses. His Fast Forward plan helped lead to improved subway performance and his Safe Save Seconds campaign led to faster trips. A bus network redesign effort has been in the works for a few years, and Byford was instrumental in putting together the $51 billion capital plan that included aggressive signal modernization work. That work sits in limbo as the COVID-19 crisis has decimated the MTA’s finances, and Byford left or was pushed out by Cuomo after the two butted heads.

That relationship, or the lack of one, was the crux of the matter. By some accounts, Cuomo grew leery of Byford following profiles in The New Yorker and on 60 Minutes and would either circumvent Byford’s authority or impose distractions upon Byford’s team. When speeds and signal calibration, for instance, became a Byford/New York City Transit priority, Cuomo tried to override Byford by putting together his own team to examine the issue but often without the experts tasked by Byford to solve the problems. It was Cuomo’s prerogative as Governor to do so, but sometimes, the best way to lead is to let the qualified and competent leaders run with their agendas. This is all well-covered terrain, and we know what we lost.

Train Daddy stickers that appeared around the city last fall were a testament to Byford’s popularity.

New Yorkers had dreams of luring Byford back, either in a city role or even as the head of New Jersey Transit, but London will benefit instead. Byford most recently worked for Transport for London as the General Manager of Customer Service for the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria Lines and had served in service delivery and station ops roles across the system. He served stints in Australia and Toronto before arriving in New York and returns to London with a mandate to oversee the entirety of the city’s transport network – the Tube and buses but also bikes, roads and pedestrian space.

Byford, who beat out 107 other candidates for the role, begins his new job on June 29. He’ll earn a salary of £355,000 (or approximately $435,000) with performance bonuses of up to 50%, a sign that London values the knowledge and skills of the people tasked with leading the gigantic TfL organization.

“I’m delighted to confirm Andy Byford as London’s new Transport Commissioner. Covid-19 has had a profound impact on public transport in London but Andy brings with him a wealth of experience and expertise to lead TfL as it faces this unprecedented challenge,” Mayor Khan said. “I look forward to working with Andy as we build a greener city with clean and environmentally-friendly travel, including walking and cycling, at the heart of its recovery.”

May 27, 2020 15 comments

View from Underground

Guest Post: Cleaning Up and Reducing Crowds are Key Steps to Prepare for a Post-COVID City

by Benjamin Kabak May 15, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 15, 2020

Today’s post is an op-ed piece from Mysore Nagaraja, Bob Previdi and Howard Sackel, a trio of New York City-area transit veterans. These post reflects their views, opinions and recommendations. If you would like to contribute your voice to Second Ave. Sagas, you can always contact me here.

Displays showing train car passenger loads could help riders better plan their trips in the age of social distancing. The one shown here is in use in London along the Overground.

The post-COVID 19 world poses a very particular challenge for transit: How do we meet the challenge of balancing the physical capacity of the transit system and its trains and buses with the new safety guidelines calling for proper social distancing?

As the economy slowly reopens and transit riders return, wearing masks in public and keeping six feet of separation will remain in place for the foreseeable future. The MTA must figure out how to manage rush hour and its historic crowding. The solution should include not only maintaining equipment and stations to a new standard of cleanliness but also working cooperatively with riders and businesses to stagger work hours and flatten the peak rush hour curves to meet the social distancing guideline.

Governor Cuomo recalled the challenges posed by the post September 11th and Hurricane Sandy periods and how New York was able to successfully meet these challenges. He suggested a plan to “build back better,” finding ways to use this tragic situation as a means to change how things are done and make them better than before. Nobody likes rush hour crowding, and perhaps NYC can use this situation to eliminate crush loads which would certainly be met favorably by the public.

Key to the return of both customers and employees is giving them confidence that their return is being safely managed. Deploying wash trains, more visible cleaning of stations and buses as well as a broad customer information program to continually reinforce the public awareness of these proactive actions will provide customers and employees with the confidence that they can still get where they need to go, with reliable service, in a healthier environment and with real time information about service status.

Data collected by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council shows that 1.1 million people travel into the Manhattan Central Business District between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m. using public transit trains and buses and the same number leave in the evening. To be able to adhere to the six-foot guidelines without doubling the number of train cars or buses (which is not possible) will therefore require using the existing fleet of buses and trains more efficiently.

The UITP, the International Association of Public Transit, reaffirmed the guidelines for social distancing and is actively advising their members to ask the public to change the time they travel to reduce peak volumes. As the MTA expects 60% of riders to return by September, there is no time to lose.

The interagency task force for transit put together by the governor should use this time while ridership is still only 10 to 15% of normal volumes to work closely with the business community and employers to reduce the passenger load during the morning and evening rush hours, by finding ways to stagger the rush hours to allow a reduction in peak congestion.

Other cities around the globe monitor crowding by subway car and advise passengers where to stand to get seats. The MTA is already testing similar technology on a few Staten Island Express buses. The MTA is also looking into technology that would report crowding conditions in a real-time way so that riders can make their own decision to stay away if crowding is becoming an issue. Working with technology leaders, solutions should be developed now to better monitor patron loading and crowding and provide real-time information to the MTA’s customers.

Another way to inform the system’s patrons about crowding and foster reduced loads is to provide information using social media and entry-point real-time information using existing monitors and new video screens above entrances to enable customers to make adjustments in their trips. Simultaneously feeding this information to social media and all media outlets can allow for real-time updates of conditions, informing customers where to enter the system or where to avoid unsafe conditions.

Transit must find a way to manage its way out this crisis or New York City risks overwhelming traffic if even some people choose to drive instead. According to US census data, 57% of those working in NYC use public transit and only 27% drive. With two million people making work trips to Manhattan each day, New York has to find a way to make transit adapt to this new world where less crowding is paramount. There is no perfect solution here, and the issue should not just be the MTA’s to solve, but the MTA can determine what level of ridership they can manage safely given the new distancing guideline. Using data about rush hour travel to help the business community and riders reshape how crowded the trains and buses get could be a long-term benefit from this horrible crisis.

About the Authors:

Bob Previdi is a transportation planner, and former Superintendent of Subway Car Assignments at NYC Transit.

Mysore Nagaraja is a transportation consultant and the former president of MTA Capital Construction and Senior VP, Capital Programs at NYC Transit

Howard Sackel was senior VP at PACO Technologies and a former director for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

May 15, 2020 8 comments

View from Underground

2019 Ridership and the 2020 Projections: What the subways lost and when it will all come back

by Benjamin Kabak May 13, 2020

written by Benjamin Kabak on May 13, 2020

Very quietly last month, the MTA released their 2019 ridership tallies, and last year was a good year for the subways. After three years of declining ridership, annual subway ridership hit 1,697,787,002, a jump of nearly 18 million or a hair over 1 percent above 2018’s total. Usually, the MTA would celebrate increased ridership and increased fare revenue, but with things being as they are right now, the release of these numbers was a muted one.

Ultimately, the L train work that reduced weekend service frequency along the 14th St. corridor likely cost the MTA a shot at 1.7 billion passengers, and if fare evasion was really as prevalent as the MTA has tried to claim it is, the subways last year may have been more crowded than they’ve ever been. I’m not quite sure that passes the smell test, but I digress. All in, 2019 was a positive step forward for the MTA, a rare spot of good news amidst the onslaught of bad these days. Whether the city will ever get back to these lofty subway ridership numbers in the COVID Era depends upon more than just the development of a vaccine.

2019 In Review

As subway ridership has cratered amidst the coronavirus pandemic, it feels weird to talk about crowded trains and increased ridership, but let’s take a look at the numbers. The gains were fairly evenly split between weekdays and weekends, a positive sign for Saturday and Sunday service which had been bleeding riders for years. An average 2019 weekday saw near 5.494 million riders, up from 5.438 million in 2018 while combined weekend ridership was slightly above 5.494 million, up also from 5.438 million a year before. Saturday gains outpaced Sunday with an average Saturday witnessing an increase of 40,000 riders while Sundays saw an increase of just 14,500 riders.

Outside of the way the L train rejiggered ridership across the G, J and M trains, the city’s newest subway stations saw some of the largest gains. The 7 train’s terminal at 34th St. and 11th Ave. saw ridership jump by 75% to 18,875 per day as the Hudson Yards development took shape and the Vessel and mall opened. Total weekday entrances at the three Q stops along Second Ave. increased by around 2500 per day as well, gains that outpaced the overall jump in subway ridership by a few percentage points.

The L train work, meanwhile, cut into the MTA’s push for 1.7 billion riders, but declines weren’t quite as steep as I would have expected. Average weekend ridership for the L train stations at 1st and 3rd Avenues in Manhattan declined by approximately 50% while stops through Williamsburg and Bushwick saw declines between 40-50 percent. Straphanger traffic into Bedford Ave. dipped by only 36 percent, and it was still the 39th busiest weekend stop last year, an impressive showing considering the paltry headways. Meanwhile, the Lorimer/Metropolitan L/G station saw a decline of only 3.7 percent, and G train stops in South Williamsburg and Greenpoint saw increases in weekend ridership of around 25 percent.

Other lines expected to carry the L train’s slack did indeed do so. Nearby station along the J and M lines saw weekend demand in excess of 50% above 2018 levels, and all in, the various mitigation efforts worked. Overall, the subways lost around 20,000 weekend entrances due to the L work, but nearby lines certainly saw an uptick in usage. (The L train worked formally wrapped in late April, and I wrote a postmortem on the L train project.)

2020 In Preview: A Spike Before the Cliff of the Pandemic

After this rosy 2019, things were looking up to start the current year as well. As the MTA reported in its board materials and on the release trumpeting last year’s ridership, “This upward trend in ridership continued in January and February of 2020, with both months outpacing January and February in 2019.” But nature in the form of COVID-19 is having its way with the world right now, and as shelter-in-place orders have slowed down the pace of life in New York City, only around 400,000-500,000 riders per day are using the subways, a 90% drop in ridership hard to contexualize. In a letter released last month calling for an additional $3.9 billion in federal aid, the MTA included a report prepared by consultants at McKinsey & Company detailing expected ridership levels over the remainder of 2020. The chart is an ugly one:

The MTA has yet to release an updated version of this chart, and already, even these pessimistic assumptions look too optimistic. The New York City area isn’t likely to see a loosening of the state’s PAUSE restrictions until early June, and the “delayed containment and recovery” track where ridership reaches 40 percent feels far more likely than the trend line anticipating 60% of riders returning by September. Whether we’ll be back at 5-10 percent of ridership and in another lockdown situation by the end of the year will depend upon a second wave. Even without another wave, the MTA is looking at a lost year of ridership, and even if everything breaks right for the city, the optimistic trend line contemplates only around 55% of riders will return this year. What if, as The Times speculates today, few people go back to work? While I am skeptical of the long-term trend, in the short term, Manhattan offices are going to be empty, and the days of 1.7 billion annual riders are going to be nothing but fond memories for the foreseeable future.

The question lingering over all of this involves the future. What happens next? Even the McKinsey analysis punts on that question as projections include a wide range of options and end in December. Subway ridership isn’t going to come back on January 1, 2021, and after receiving $3.8 billion last month and asking for an additional $3.9 billion, the MTA now says it will need at least $10.4 billion by the end of 2021 to stay afloat. Forget the $51 billion capital plan and the long-desired federal contribution; the MTA needs these dollars to stay solvent during a prolonged period of low ridership. Without it, they – and the city – are sunk as the bills pile up.

“Our request has garnered substantial bipartisan support as it did in the first round,” MTA CEO and Chairman Pat Foye said this week. “This is not a red or blue state issue; it’s a no brainer. The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the importance of public transportation, during the pandemic and as part of the economic recovery when the pandemic subsides.”

But the recovery isn’t just economic. The MTA has to make people feel that transit is a choice that will not jeopardize public health. Already, the agency has had to contend with spurious claims such as those put forth in an MIT report that the subways spread coronavirus. Both Alon Levy and Aaron Gordon burned plenty of pixels debunking and contextualizing the argument. I don’t buy it either, but while we learn more about the transmission of coronavirus via droplets spread in contained spaces without sufficient ventilation, the subways can seem daunting. That is, in part, why the Governor ordered the end of 24/7 subway service (though we should be skeptical of those claims as well, as I wrote in a Patreon post last week).

Still, making the subways appealing is going to be costly. The MTA will have to maintain the appearances of cleanliness, through an aggressive cleaning and disinfecting program currently underway. This program has no price tag yet, and the agency hasn’t released any sort of scientific assessment indicating how long trains stay clean or disinfected after customers board to touch everything. We’ll have to get used to masks, gloves and a lot less singing on the subways. A contact-less fare payment should help too, but the OMNY rollout is still on pause due to the response to the virus. Until there is a vaccine, most New Yorkers are likely to view transit with skepticism, and I can’t say I blame them. The geometry of cars and the geography of New York City will likely help avoid the carmageddon we fear, but the MTA’s rider-dependent finances won’t improve unless and until ridership climbs and ridership won’t climb if New Yorkers aren’t comfortable on crowded subway trains.

Glimmers Of Hope Down The Line

Left unsaid in my ramblings today about the ridership figures is the impact of New York City’s most popular British import. The 2019 and early 2020 numbers were a testament to Andy Byford and the results he produced. By focusing on improving subway service and by focusing the public conversation on the actual improvements, riders returned to the system. The one percent increase during a prolonged period of L train service diversions is a true success story, and the building blocks are in place for the MTA to build on that success in a post-COVID Era. The problem will be one of revenue, from the feds who can rescue the MTA and save the economic lifeline of the city as the riders start to trickle back, and one of time. A year from now, when the MTA releases the 2020 ridership numbers, the picture will be grim, but we can hope now that things go up from there.

May 13, 2020 17 comments

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