Second Ave. Sagas

New Voices for Subway Service Announcements

by Bill Bahng Boyer August 7, 2009

written by Bill Bahng Boyer on August 7, 2009

It’s the end of the week and time to wrap up my guest stint here at Second Avenue Sagas. Thank you to Ben for the opportunity to share my work with other people who are interested in what I consider one of the greatest public transportation systems in the world.

I missed this story in the Daily News about the NYC Transit auditions for new station announcers. According to the article, potential ethereal voices are being culled from among subway conductors and motormen to cover fifteen posts throughout the system, and there is money in the budget for 14 additional posts down the road. A followup article reported that an unemployed chauffer, not even employed by NYC Transit, decided to audition as well.

In my interviews with passengers over the past several years, one of the foremost complaints that I have received about sound in the subway is the difficulty of understanding announcements in the trains and on platforms. Although the occasional tourist has a hard time understanding service changes because of the accent of the transmitted voice, most breakdowns in communication can be chalked up to technological malfunctions. Broken speakers, overpowering electronic buzzes, or crackling sounds due to a short in the wiring can all get in the way of clear communication if the public address system is not sufficiently maintained.

The introduction of automated, pre-recorded service advisories, voiced by Bloomberg Radio personalities, in the new R142 trains that have been running on IRT lines since 2000 are certainly an improvement. But even in those trains, sudden changes in schedules require the interjection of live announcements, often susceptible to the same issues mentioned above that other cars and station PA systems face. Although most planned service changes are announced with signs posted in stations, trains are regularly delayed or diverted from their normal routes for a variety of reasons, and in these instances the only way for passengers to know what is happening is to listen to the announcements. To make things worse, some stations – a whopping 35% of them as recently as 2005 – still don’t have PA systems installed.

I’d like to hear from you. Does your station have announcements? Do you have a hard time hearing them? Have you seen NYCTA workers walking through the trains taking decibel measurements of car speakers? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and if you’re really interested or opinionated about the issue, please take this survey on sound and the subway to contribute to my research. Thank you, New York!

Bill Bahng Boyer splits his time between Brooklyn and New Hampshire, where he is a visiting fellow at the Dartmouth College Leslie Center for the Humanities. He’s currently completing his dissertation, titled “Public Hearing: Sonic Encounters and Social Responsibility in the New York City Subway System,” for a Ph.D. from NYU. In his free time, Bill plays the sanshin in HappyFunSmile, a New York-based Okinawan and Japanese pop band.

August 7, 2009 7 comments

Interview with Susie Tanenbaum, Subway Musicians’ Advocate

by Bill Bahng Boyer August 6, 2009

written by Bill Bahng Boyer on August 6, 2009

Susie Tanenbaum

Arguably the definitive book on musical performance in the spaces of public transportation, Underground Harmonies: Music and Politics in the Subways of New York, by Susie Tanenbaum, presents an insightful and fascinating portrayal of the culture of music that has existed for decades in the stations of New York’s subway, adroitly drawing research techniques from urban anthropology, sociology, social history, cultural studies, constitutional law, political theory, urban planning, folklore, and urban ecology. Earlier this week I met with Ms. Tanenbaum in her office at Queens Borough Hall and had the opportunity to ask her about Underground Harmonies and the work she has been doing on behalf of local musicians and artists since the book’s completion.

It’s been nearly 15 years since Underground Harmonies was published. Are you happy with the book’s reception?
At the risk of sounding cliché, writing Underground Harmonies was an absolute labor of love. It meant a lot to me to be able to write about subway music as this incredibly special public space phenomenon, one that makes a difference to countless people as they go through their daily urban routine, one that legitimates the subways as a cultural venue, one that places value on subjective experience, and one that encourages people – complete strangers – to communicate across ethnic/racial boundaries without the need for advertising or other corporate packaging. It’s gratifying to know that UH was the first book written about NYC subway music; 15 years later, I’m thrilled to get contacted from time to time by researchers (like you) and documentarians.

Do you think it had an effect on conversations about public transportation and the arts?
I’m not sure I can gauge UH’s impact on conversations about public transportation and the arts. In January, I was invited to speak at a national transportation conference, and I was told that this was the first time the association (with membership in the tens of thousands) had organized a panel on arts in transit. Maybe work like mine, and yours, will become more relevant as transit experts and mavens pay more & more attention to aesthetics. The Know Your Rights Guide that I wrote after the book, in collaboration with City Lore: The Center for Urban Folk Culture, which is now on City Lore’s web site, may have had a greater impact on conversations between subway performers and police.

Have you noticed any changes in the situation of live musical performance in the New York subways in the past fifteen years?
The truth is, I don’t spend as much time in the subways as I did in the 1990s. But my own impression, and that of some of my friends, is that there isn’t as much live music in the subways as there used to be. If not, why not? Maybe it’s because subway music is no longer a novelty, and musicians have moved on to other venues and callings. Or maybe it’s because many transit police officers are still under the impression that the MTA’s Music Under NY members are the only ones who have a legal right to perform underground, so they (the transit police) shut down the freelancers. In reality, all performers, whether freelance or MUNY, have a constitutional right to perform in subway stations. Steve Zeitlin from City Lore has been getting a lot of emails lately from freelance musicians who say that the transit police have told them they’re not allowed to perform on subway platforms. Unless the MTA/NYCT rules were amended recently, this is untrue.

It’s strange…. Rudy Giuliani was a bully, obsessed with Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s “broken windows theory” and determined to render our public spaces orderly by clearing out any meaningful human activity. But Mike Bloomberg is quite different. He really values public art, and in the summers he organizes these vehicle-free Saturdays to encourage people to come out and engage in all kinds of spontaneous play. Is this a situation where the sentiments of the folks in charge haven’t trickled down to what’s happening on the ground in the subways? Is it a situation where the priorities of the NYCT (getting people from point A to point B) conflict with the priorities of the Mayor & the MTA (making public spaces hospitable)? Or is it a situation where spontaneous play only matters when the city schedules a day for it – in other words, does the city still either not trust or not care very much about spontaneous, freelance street and subway performances?

How did you initially get interested in musical performance and doing an ethnographic study of people in the subway?
I enrolled in the Urban Studies Master’s program at Queens College-CUNY in the late 1980s, mainly to study with Dr. Roger Sanjek, an urban anthropologist who was doing fieldwork at the time in Elmhurst and Corona, Queens, the epicenter of the new immigration to New York at the time. Roger and his team were documenting the relationships between long-time residents and recent immigrants, and I deeply appreciated his approach to understanding the multiple layers of race relations in our borough and city. I arranged to do an independent study with Roger and, for reasons that remain unconscious to me, I wanted to explore how traditional music helped new immigrants to settle into their new society. After a few attempts at visiting particular communities in this part of Queens, Roger asked me why I don’t write instead about the guys I’d become friends with who were playing music in the subways. I’d been getting to know the members of Antara, one of the first Andean bands underground. I took Roger’s advice, and with guidance from another professor, Candance Kim Edel, I continued my fieldwork for the next four years. It became my Master’s thesis, then Roger helped me to get my work published by Cornell University Press. I’m still good friends with some of the original members of Antara.

If you were to republish the book today, what changes would you make?
Truthfully, I don’t think I could write the same book today. For one thing, transit police officers and NYCT employees probably wouldn’t grant me interviews as they did back then. Whether it’s post-911 security or a general trend toward bureaucratizing & controlling information, it seems our government agencies prefer not to have researchers document the subjective experiences of their employees. I really hope I’m wrong about this. In any event, if I were to write the book today, I would certainly include copies of the questionnaires that I used (the New York Times criticized me for leaving them out!). I’d love to know if people have suggestions on what else to include in a book like this!

What other projects have you been working on since you wrote the book?
In the 1990s I worked as Program Director and later Associate Director of the Jackson Heights Community Development Corporation. Among other things, I started LACE, the Local Arts Collaborative & Exchange, a network of 60 – 100 visual, literary and performing artists. Together we organized exhibits, concerts, readings & Open Mics throughout western Queens. Several of the members & my co-organizers were subway musicians. Currently I work for Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, and two of my areas of responsibility are immigrant and inter-cultural affairs. I plan cultural heritage events with various religious and ethnic communities in the borough, and I organize cross-cultural dialogues, which still often incorporate music. I really enjoy bringing people together across cultural lines and creating spaces in which they build relationships; to me, this is a quiet but meaningful form of political empowerment, one that I actually get to do out of a political office (because I have a wonderful boss who is an integrationist and a veteran of the civil rights movement)! On the side, Steve Zeitlin and I are in touch with subway musicians and we’re hoping to revive what we call our Street Performers Advocacy Project. I’ll keep you posted on that.

August 6, 2009 7 comments

MetroCard

The Future of the MetroCard Part 4

by Jeremy Steinemann August 6, 2009

written by Jeremy Steinemann on August 6, 2009

Today is the final part of a four-part series on the Future of the MetroCard and smart card technologies. Part 1 outlined the benefits of smart card technology; Part 2 outlined the deficiencies of the MetroCard; Part 3 summarized the current plans for a smart card in NYC; and Part 4, below, proposes a new smart card for NYC.

The NY Times this morning had additional coverage on Bloomberg’s free cross-town bus proposal, as well as his push for a NYC smart card. According to the article, Mr. Soffin, an MTA spokesman, insisted that the MTA’s pay-pass pilot (on the Lexington Avenue Line) would be expanded to some buses by the end of the year. No word on a potential link with the Port Authority or New Jersey Transit, as the Philadelphia Daily News reported in July.

Part 4 – Get Smart
Although the specifics remain unclear, there are enough whispers from Elliot Sander, Jay Walder, Bloomberg, and the Port Authority to glean that an inter-agency smart card (in some form) is on its way. Outlined below is a proposal for what I believe such a smart card should look like in NYC.

A fantasy smart-card for NYC. Could this be our future?

1. Contactless RFID-Chips
I admit that I do not understand all of the technology behind fare cards, but I can say with certainty that the magnetic strip technology of the current MetroCard is not capable of performing all of the functions of a full-fledged smart card. Smart cards use an RFID chip, which enables a greater amount of information to be stored on a card than on a magnetic strip. Many credit card companies have supplemented magnetic strips with RFID chips on their own credit cards, because the capacity of RFID offers space for security features that permit users to use the card without a PIN. These same security features enable transit agencies to create smart card management systems for riders online. Additionally, the capacity of RFID allows one card to carry multiple pieces of transit information: an unlimited pass, a user’s transit status (student, handicapped, senior, etc.), transit balance, etc..

In addition to holding a greater capacity, RFID chips are also incredibly durable and adaptable. Even if a magnetic strip could implement all of the technological benefits of an RFID chip, it would have to be replaced at least as often as the average, well-used debit card. And unlike magnetic strips, an RFID chip can be embedded into virtually anything: cell phones, key chains, and even bizarre, carbon-tracking gloves. In Hong Kong and Britain, transit RFID chips are embedded into bank debit cards, streamlining wallets with one fewer card and enabling users to re-fill their transit accounts at bank ATMs.

Yet let’s take this a step further. Imagine a day when you can buy your transit tickets and passes on your smart phone. When you arrive at a fair gate or enter a train, instead of waving your smart card over a sensor – you’ll wave your RFID-embedded phone. In other words, your phone has become both the ticket vending machine AND the ticket. No MetroCard will ever be able to do that.

Finally and most importantly, RFID chips enable Contact-Less payment. While the MetroCard seems relatively fast, anyone who has used a contact-less smart card will tell you that it’s slow and prone to error. Currently the NYC subway system is bursting at the seams with over 5M riders on a weekday, and that number will continue to grow. A fast fare payment system will reduce congestion at subway turnstiles and dramatically speed payment on buses.

2. Inter-modal Compatibility
Like the Oyster and the Octopus, NYC’s smart card must be inter-modal. As outlined on Monday, the smart card has the power to remove psychological and logistical barriers between transit systems and modes. Once those barriers are removed, transit systems see greater flow between complementary, connecting modes.

As readers mentioned in their comments, implementation on each respective mode will require coordination and planning. While subways have logical entry and exit points, commuter rail lines do not. International systems, however, offer many examples of successful implementation on different modes of transportation. On the National Railway in London, conductors carry digital readers that scan the smart cards. Each rider’s card has a monthly pass, a digital one-way ticket purchased on the platform, or a fund to debit the ticket purchase. The flexibility of the technology ensures successful, inter-modal implementation.

3. MTA, Lead the Way! Sort of. . .
The politics of creating a regional smart card for NYC will undoubtedly be complicated. On the one hand, the Port Authority has traditionally played the role of inter-state transit leader. In order for the smart card to be a success, however, the MTA will play the most important role.

As outlined yesterday, the Port Authority has already implemented SmartLink, a smart card that has many of the features of modern smart card technology. Not only is it contact-less, like the Oyster or the Octopus, but its value can be controlled through the SmartLink website. The PA’s pilot for an expanded smart card system presumably will utilize the SmartLink.

A smart card in NYC, however, must be implemented first on the NYC Subway and NYC buses, because it the most efficient way to achieve a critical mass of smart card users. Unlike on commuter rail systems, smart card implementation on the subways/buses will be straightforward both for the MTA and most riders. Furthermore, since subway and bus ridership are so large relative to all other systems, smart card success on these modes would encourage its success on other modes/systems. Riders will gravitate to the fare card they use most frequently or is most popular.

As a result, implementation of a NYC smart card should follow a pattern that first establishes mass acceptance and then builds upon that foundation to link other systems that do not traditionally share the same fare collection system:

A. Start with systems where implementation is straightforward, ridership is greatest, and services are already linked: NYC Subway & Buses.
B. Extend implementation to popular connecting services that are intuitive extensions of the existing implementation: PATH, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, Newark Light Rail, NJT Local Buses, AirTrain, etc
C. Extend to connecting systems that require more complex implementation and potentially contradict users’ traditional payment methods: LIRR, Metro North, NJT, Regional Buses, etc.
D. Extend to systems with lower ridership: Ferries, private jitneys, etc.

Although this project must rely on the MTA’s participation in order to achieve success, it should not be, nor can be, the sole agency leading its design. In my opinion, the Port Authority is unique in NYC for its role in bridging different governments and transit systems. Furthermore, the SmartLink card has already been successfully developed and piloted on the PATH. As a result, the MTA should not build their own smart card. Instead, they should take advantage of the Port Authority’s already completed R&D work by adopting the SmartLink and then working with the Port Authority to spread it to other systems.

4. Super-Regional Compatibility
Several readers expressed concerns about the boundaries of a NYC smart card. Reader Avi remarks:

“But once you add NJ Transit you open up a whole new can of worms. NJ Transit shares a station (Trenton) with Septa. Do you add Septa to the system? What about the NJ Riverlines? PATCO? It’s easy to keep saying yes, yes, yes, but before you know it you’re trying to coordinate an agreement between 10+ different agencies in 5+ states. Good luck getting everyone to agree on that.”

First, thank you, Avi, for your comment – it’s a very important point. Before I address it, I would like to remind everyone that we shouldn’t limit our plans simply because they seem complicated or overly ambitious. If planners had felt the same way 100 years ago, we never would have built NY’s current subway system.

Second, don’t underestimate the power of the smart card. If the Philadelphia area issued its own smart card for SEPTA, PATCO, and NJT services in the Philly area, there is no reason why this system could not be compatible with New York’s system. On Massachusetts highways, for example, the toll collection system is Fast Lane, but is fully compatible with EZ-Pass. The technology of RFID chips and their linkage to credit cards and bank accounts could easily allow for cross-system compatibility. In fact, planners in Philly are already planning to ensure potential cross-compatibility, by creating an “open-loop system” that will allow any RFID-enabled device to pay for the services.

Even if we presume that cities – DC, Philly, New York, Boston – remain the epicenters of respective smart card systems, we can presume that each card can be designed or adapted to ensure cross-compatibility. As a result, services that exist on the border of two transit eco-systems, like the RiverLine (NY and Philly), can accept more than one smart card. Regardless of which card you use, the appropriate agency will still receive the fare.

August 6, 2009 24 comments

MetroCard

The Future of the MetroCard Part 3

by Jeremy Steinemann August 5, 2009

written by Jeremy Steinemann on August 5, 2009

Today I offer part three of a series on the Future of the Metro Card and smart card technologies. In case you missed them: Part 1 and Part 2. In order to incorporate a lot of the comments we have received, I have decided to split part three into two parts. Expect an additional Part 4 tomorrow — a proposed Smart Card for NYC.

Part 3 – Smart Card Progress in NYC

As we reported on Monday, Elliot Sander has passed the baton to Jay Walder, Head Wizard of the OysterCard, to lead the MTA into smart-card future. Walder may not be alone — just this morning, Bloomberg called for an MTA technology czar, to keep NYC on the cutting edge in transit technology (which it most certainly is not). Based on the record of his 2001 promises, we should be skeptical this time around — still it’s exciting to see Bloomberg linking his own political success to the future of transit. And in my opinion, a dedicated technology czar could be great news for incredibly delayed projects like Computer-Based Train Control, GPS for buses, and under-ground cellphone service.

As many of you commented on Monday and Tuesday, both the MTA and the Port Authority are no strangers to smart cards. The developments in smart card technology among all agencies, however, have been fragmented, slow, and confusing. Below, I attempt to summarize what each agency has done and synthesize where I believe they are actually headed.

Past Progress

The MTA first launched a contact-less payment system in a pilot on the Lexingt on Avenue Line in 2006. The project was in partnership with MasterCard, utilizing their PayPass technology — a fancy credit card version of an RFID-enabled smart card, usually in the form of a fob. Early reports were successful, leading to an extension in 2007. Participating credit cards even allowed pay-pass users to use their cellphone as the pass. Although the pilot remains active, the MTA has been fairly mum about the project.

The PortAuthority launched their own smart card, the SmartLink, in 2006. Although riders initally preferred the MetroCard, according to recent reports the SmartLink is now the most popular way to pay on PATH. The SmartLink has many of the benefits of a modern smart card. It is a contact-less system, ensuring speed, and its money value can be controlled online. Its usefulness is limited, of course, by its scope — it has no interoperability with any other system, not even the PA’s own AirTrain systems.

Recent Progress

Perhaps because the PortAuthority recognized the SmartLink’s un-tapped potential (yes, that’s a pun), leaders decided in 2008 to pilot (what I think is) a SmartLink expansion. In February 2008, the Port Authority announced a pilot with NJT “to develop and test a ‘tap’ payment card at all 13 PATH train stations and on two connecting NJ TRANSIT bus routes”. Like the MTA, NJ Transit and the Port Authority chose MasterCard to design and build the system. Although the pilot was expected to “lauch in early 2009“, I have heard nothing about it, and its relationship to the existing SmartLink program remains unclear. Unless one of you can share new information, I can only presume that this pilot is being held up in some long-term development process (aka transit purgatory).

Miraculously, however, the MTA may be able to shed some light. As recently as July 2009, Steve Frazzini, chief fare-payment officer at New York City Transit, told the Philadelphia Daily News (thanks to reader, Scott E for the the correction) that the MTA “will demonstrate a second phase [of the Lexigton Avenue pilot] at year’s end .” According to the same Philly article, Frazzine said that the expanded MTA pilot “will include 275 buses and will link to a pilot with the Port Authority of NY/NJ, PATH and New Jersey Transit.” In other words, the MTA is in fact working with the Port Authority and NJT on a smart card pilot.

Conclusion
The respective agencies are lacking transparency and the media has failed to properly investigate their plans. There has been no press release. There has been no coverage by a NYC-based media outlet. Yet right under our noses, the MTA, NJT, and the Port Authority are (supposedly) in the process of piloting a multi-agency smart card. (Finding out about it in the Philadelphia Daily News is but salt in the wound.)

But since this blog was inspired by the Second Avenue Subway, let’s just say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 4 – Smart Card Proposal for NYC. If anyone has any additional sources of information about anything above, please pass it along. Once again, thank you for all of your excellent comments!

August 5, 2009 7 comments

International Subways Subway History

Is Bizarro New York Filled with Flying Cars?

by Bill Bahng Boyer August 5, 2009

written by Bill Bahng Boyer on August 5, 2009

A Viable Subway Alternative?

Last week on the NBC Bay Area blog, on the heels of the resolution of a labor dispute between the BART administration and labor workers, Owen Thomas asked how San Francisco would be different today if the BART system were never constructed. Thomas’s speculation on an alternative reality for the Bay Area is replete with newer, faster forms of transportation that reach the most concentrated and important centers of the region. While the plausibility of the image that Thomas paints is debatable (and debated in the post’s comments), it leads one to wonder what a subway-less New York would look like.

Clearly, New York is in a very different situation from San Francisco, due to the fact that much of New York’s growth followed – and was a result of – the construction of new subway lines in the early twentieth century. Perhaps streetcars and elevated trains would have stretched the city limits to something resembling their current dimensions. Maybe in the absence of a subway system Robert Moses would have had a greater impact on the shaping of the city? In such a situation New York City proper might be smaller with more surrounding suburbs and highways crossing the island of Manhattan. Or was a New York subway inevitable, and would have been built in the 1960s following federal support for urban transportation, much in the same way the BART and D.C. Metro were constructed?

What do you think New York would be like today if the subway weren’t constructed in 1904? Share your imaginings in the comments below. [via The Overhead Wire]

August 5, 2009 13 comments

Buses LIRR Metro-North MTA MTA Politics

Bloomberg Seeks MTA Changes

by Bill Bahng Boyer August 4, 2009

written by Bill Bahng Boyer on August 4, 2009

At an appearance before the press yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced 33 changes that he would like to see implemented by the MTA in upcoming months, a move that the New York Times is pegging as an “odd” first proposal in the Mayor’s campaign for re-election. The complete list of the mayor’s recommended improvements, which can be found on his campaign site, extend to railway, bus, and ferry services. Changes that affect subway service include the following:

the institution of an F line express train
the extension of V trains into Brooklyn
the expansion of the countdown clocks currently installed in on the L line to other stations
increased maintenance of subway stations
the creation of an integrated New York transit Smart Card
increased NYPD control of transit system security, with a reference to the installation of surveillance cameras in subway tunnels
partnership with area business owners, similar to the old Adopt-A-Station program, to improve cleanliness around subway entrances
the vague and questionable call for a “crack down on quality of life nuisances in subways and bus stations”

According to the AP, the MTA welcomed the mayor’s input, although the move is not without its critics. Although the mayor holds four of the seventeen votes on the MTA board, many wonder how much sway he can actually hold in the Authority’s operations. The New York Daily News points out that several of the mayor’s proposals “have been on the MTA’s drawing board for years.” Carly Lindauer, a spokeswoman for Bloomberg’s likely Democratic opponent, Controller William Thompson, called the announcement “more empty promises.” Thompson had already proposed one of the mayor’s ideas, namely the expanded use of CityTickets on the LIRR and Metro-North. TWU Local 100 president Roger Toussaint, speaking with The Times, called the mayor’s press meeting more political grandstanding.

The mayor’s sudden interest in the operations of the MTA is a great change from just a few months ago, when elected officials and representatives of public interest groups repeatedly called the mayor to task for his near total silence during the MTA’s budget crisis.

August 4, 2009 14 comments

MetroCard

The Future of the MetroCard Part 2

by Jeremy Steinemann August 4, 2009

written by Jeremy Steinemann on August 4, 2009

Today, I continue the four-part series on the Future of the MetroCard. Yesterday, in Part 1, I outlined the benefits of smart cards. Today in Part 2, we focus on the deficiencies of the current MetroCard. Part 3, available here, summarizes the current plans for a smart card in NYC; and Part 4 proposes a new smart card for NYC.

Thank you all for yesterday’s excellent comments — please, keep them coming!

Part 2 – MetroCard FAIL

As reported yesterday, the MetroCard is at the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a very long, drawn out death. If the MTA follows its usual schedule, we’ll see a MetroCard replacement probably sometime around 2050. But the MetroCard is young; subway tokens had been around for 50 years before the MetroCard killed them for good in 2003.

Despite its youth, the MetroCard is now obsolete. If our goal is to expand our transit systems and increase ridership, then the MetroCard must be replaced. Here’s why:

1. The MetroCard is Slow.
A flimsy plastic card with a magnetic strip that gets damaged in one’s own packet is not efficient, reliable technology. Even the best of us get slipped up: “Please swipe again.” “Swipe card again at this turnstile.” “Too fast. Swipe again.” “Insufficient Fare.” Or, the dreaded, “See agent.” Then throw in a few thousand tourists (who are either used to smart-cards [thanks, Europe & Asia] or have never seen a subway before [thanks, middle-America]) and suddenly the turnstile is a nightmare.

Unlike the MetroCard, smart cards stay right in your wallet or handbag. In London, a whole business has been formed around OysterCard covers called OysterShells. And in Boston it’s not unusual to see a man lift his right hip up just far enough at the gate so the reader can scan the card in his pocket. Once you experience this magic, it’s hard to go back to the cumbersome swipe.

2. No MetroCards Allowed.
Although the New York Metropolitan region has the greatest transit use in the country, we suffer from an incredibly inefficient, decentralized transportation network. Instead of one public agency, we have at least three (MTA, NJT, Port Authority), in addition to numerous private bus, ferry, and jitney companies. The residents of NJ and CT experience this most acutely, crossing state lines every day from one transit eco-system to another.

Right now, the MetroCard has the potential to bridge these separate systems, but instead continues to divide them. Besides MTA’s city sevices (and LI Bus), the MetroCard is only valid for the PATH and the Bee-Line Bus System in Westchester. Yet the PATH proves that riders would prefer one fare system; the majority of PATH riders use the MetroCard.

Despite what commuters would prefer, the MetroCard’s footprint remains small:

A system-wide smart card would dramatically transform New Yorkers’ perceptions of inter-modal transportation. Right now, MetroNorth stations in the Bronx and LIRR stations in Brooklyn and Queens are woefully under-utilized by MTA and its riders. Even Michael Bloomberg hopes to expand commuter rail service at these stations (thanks to reader, Kai, for the link). If the MetroCard were introduced for these services, they would be immediately considered on par with the subway and the bus, encouraging residents to use these stations within the urban core.

Of course, this is but one example — the implications for regional transportation are vast. Stamford to Newark; Jersey City to Brooklyn; Staten Island to Manhattan — multiple modes, multiple agencies, one fare card.

3. MetroCard… more like StupidCard!
Sure, magnetic strips can store information, but the beauty of a SmartCard is its flexible, ever-expanding functionality. In Hong Kong, the Octopus smart card is used everywhere from the subway to parking meters, from 7-11 to Starbucks. The technology of an RFID-chip embedded into the smart card allows for lots of information in one card.

Right now, Unlimited MetroCards don’t work on the PATH system. Instead, you need a separate Pay-Per-Ride MetroCard. This is redundant and wasteful — one smart card could do both. Similarly, the MTA creates separate MetroCards for each type of rider: student, senior citizen, disabled, etc.. Instead, one kind of smart card can be issued to everyone and customized, via programming, to reflect their status and meet their commuting needs.

Conclusion
In short, the MetroCard fails to provide the benefits of modern smart card technology. Not only is it (relatively) ancient and slow, the MetroCard fails to encourage inter-modal, inter-agency transportation use. My analysis above is quick-and-dirty and largely anecdotal. Please share your own thoughts on the MetroCard — where it fails, where it succeeds, and whether or not you think it should be replaced.

Spotted on 54th Street: A better use of the MetroCard?

August 4, 2009 46 comments

MTA Subway History

Subway Noise Revisited

by Bill Bahng Boyer August 3, 2009

written by Bill Bahng Boyer on August 3, 2009

Hi everyone. While Ben is out of town on a well deserved break, Jeremy and I will do our best to keep the website in service over the next week. Let’s see if it’s still up and running when he returns.

Over the past year I’ve spent considerable time in the archives of the MTA Transit Museum poring over records, newspaper clippings, and correspondences between Transit Authority officials and members of the public. I’m doing this for the sake of reconstructing a historical soundscape of the subways, as part of my doctoral research at NYU. Over the months I’ve found quite a bit of information, although it’s not readily accessible due to the fact that “sound” isn’t something that the collection catalogs index. I tell you, there’s nothing more rewarding than going against the organizational grain in an archive and coming up with something that otherwise would be lost to time.

As was covered here earlier, a new report coming out of the University of Washington and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health later this month addresses the dangerously high noise levels present throughout the subway system. While the results of this survey will no doubt have an impact on the relationship between the MTA and the public in the next few years, it’s hardly the first time that the noisiness of the train has come under scrutiny. In fact, on October 29, 1904, the day after the subway opened, a J.R. Sedden wrote to the New York Times editor warning of “Auritis – A Subway Disease.” He predicted that it would become a fad among New York doctors over the next year. Although hearing loss has been a serious concern for passengers and transit workers ever since, the name never stuck. I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing.

By the early 1970s, noise pollution had entered the public sphere as a serious issue. Around the same time that Mayor Lindsey was pushing for new noise-control codes to regulate the level of sound throughout New York, a series of reports on the noise levels of the subway were released, including one organized Columbia professor Cyril M. Harris and another from the Environmental Protection Agency.

One of the most interesting things that I found in my archival visits was the scant mention of an MTA public hearing held on December 11, 1974, concerning the noise levels of the subways. According to the MTA annual report from that year, the MTA board expected the public to be receptive to recently begun renovations of subway stations, including the installation of noise-canceling wall covers and other echo-deterring materials. Instead, the public overwhelmingly pressured the MTA that the more pressing issue was the elimination of wheel and brake noise. Apparently, the MTA took the public’s protests to heart and sunk several millions of dollars into maintenance efforts, including wheel-trueing and track welding, in order to reduce train noise.

Sadly, the MTA has no other record of this public hearing, so it’s hard to venture past speculation in recreating this little chunk of subway history. I’d love to read any press coverage or speak to someone who was in attendance. If you have any leads, please let me know!

August 3, 2009 9 comments

MetroCard

The Future of the MetroCard – Part 1

by Jeremy Steinemann August 3, 2009

written by Jeremy Steinemann on August 3, 2009

This morning, I am starting a three-part series on the Future of the MetroCard and smart card technology. Part 1 will outline the benefits of modern smart card technology; Part 2 will highlight the deficiencies of the current MetroCard system; ; and Part 3 will summarize the MTA’s current and future smart-card plans.

Part 1 – Why Smart Card?

During his final days as MTA Chief (and sacrificial-lamb of the NY State Senate), Elliot Sander announced informal plans for the MTA’s future replacement of the Metro Card. Described by the Post, rather ironically, as “Ez-Pass for the subway”, the future fare system would use tap-and-go Smart Card technology, increasingly the de-facto fare collection system for modern cities. The announcement was bittersweet for Sander, trumpeting a project he has prepped himself but will certainly outlive him at the MTA.

Indeed, in-coming MTA Chairman, Jay Walder, is famous for his own smart-card project, the wildly popular OysterCard in London. In 2006, as a consultant for McKinsey&Co., Walder helped prepare a report for the MTA that concluded that SmartCard technology could be successfully for the NYC market. If SmartCard technology is going to happen in NYC — and I think it should — Walder is definitely the man for the job.

To see what the future might have in store for NYC, highlighted below are three smart card systems from around the world, London, Hong Kong, and Boston:

It’s clear from the chart that Hong Kong’s OctopusCard is the winner in sheer functionality. On a recent vacation, I witnessed the Octopus Card first hand. In addition to the city’s countless private and quasi-public transit systems, the Octopus Card is accepted at convenience stores, Starbucks, McDonalds, and vending machines, just to name a few. In 2003, the city even converted all of its Parking Meters to accept Octopus and taxis are apparently on the way.

As I see it, there are 4 Key Benefits to smart card technology:

1. Speed. Smart cards dramatically reduce the time required for passengers to enter and exit the system. This can be felt acutely in Boston, where buses still accept change in addition to the CharlieCard. The collective groan when Grandmother Pebbles pulls out her change purse is palpable.

2. Regional Integration. If our goal is to increase the use of public transportation, it is imperative to remove any barriers that might impede a potential transit rider. In Hong Kong, the transporation system was developed (and is currently run) by various public and private companies, many of which have distinct geographic emphases. The SmartCard links the regional components of the system, removing any barriers for the rider between each agency. In fact, in Hong Kong, most riders fail to notice the different transit operators, since they all accept the same fare system.

3. Inter-modal Integration. In a similar way, a smart card removes barriers between different modes of transportation. A transit rider in London can use the OysterCard for the National Railway, the Tube, double-decker buses, and more. The result is a wider conception of transportation opportunities. Riders switch modes without regard to payment method.

4. Flexible pricing strategies. Unlike a token, which holds a pre-determined value, or a paper ticket, which has a value that must be set in advance, smart cards are fully dynamic. For example, a subway ride in London can start at $2.60, but rises to as high as $20 depending upon the length of the trip and time of the day. Dynamic payment, however, does NOT have to mean Pay-as-you-go only. As Boston and London demonstrate, unlimited-ride passes are perfectly compatible with smart card technology. In one smart card you can store your monthly pass — good for the subway you take everyday — in addition to a stored value — which you use for the ferry/train/tram/taxi you use occasionally. The key point is that smart cards provide a transit operator with multiple options, rather than boxing them into one pricing strategy. As a result, more than one transit operator can implement the card without forgoing their individual fare structure.

Conclusion:
Now, you could argue that the Metro Card has the potential to provide all four of the benefits described above. (Part 2, tomorrow, will provide an analysis of the Metro Card and its deficiencies.) What is important to understand is that what makes a smart card successful is the scope of its implementation. A Smart Card allows for fare integration across all modes and systems, thereby encouraging greater use of the system. However, if the smart card is not implemented across the majority of systems and modes — which the Metro Card most certainly is not — then it will fail to provide the benefits above.

August 3, 2009 27 comments

Self Promotion

Guest Bloggers This Week

by Jeremy Steinemann August 2, 2009

written by Jeremy Steinemann on August 2, 2009

Guest-blogging will continue this week at Second Avenue Sagas. Replacing Ben are Bill Boyer and myself, Jeremy Steinemann. Bill and I will be playing tag-team from Monday to Friday. Expect some excellent posts on the history and future of the subway system, as well as the usual news coverage.

August 2, 2009 2 comments

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