AsidesHudson Yards

MTA gets its one-billion-dollar Hudson Yards deal after all

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 19, 2008

Despite prognostications that the collapse of the Tishman Speyer Hudson Yards agreement would lead to a lesser development deal, word is that the MTA is going to get its $1 billion after all. As Charles V. Bagli reports on The Times’ City Room blog, Stephen M. Ros, CEO of Related Companies and one of the runners-up in the original bidding process, has inked a deal worth $1 billion to develop the Hudson Yards area. This is, of course, good news for the cash-strapped MTA, and there is, as yet, no word on how long it will take this deal to collapse as well. [City Room with a hat tip to my friends at Impatient Sufferance]

Update 2:55 p.m.: For the official MTA statement, head on over to this press release. It has more details that you could ever want.

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MTA Construction

The people ride in a box suspended above the ground

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 19, 2008

The Times diagrams a subway tunnel suspended in midair. Click to enlarge.

About two weeks ago, The Times checked in on the Ground Zero construction and the rebuilding of the IRT subway tunnel that skirts the former World Trade Center site. While at the time, I didn’t have a chance to write about it, the article, still timely, warrants a look. It’s a fun little piece of engineering reporting about a unique stretch of the subway tunnel.

David Dunlap’s piece focuses around the engineering challenges facing work crews as they work in, around and even under the IRT tunnel. Dunlap tells us about the work:

The people don’t always ride in a hole in the ground. Those aboard the No. 1 train in Lower Manhattan are now riding part of the way through the air.

There is no view to admire. The trains are still well below street level, on tracks running within a box-shaped concrete tunnel that bisects the World Trade Center site. But instead of soil, the south half of that 975-foot stretch of subway rests on a newly built network of brawny steel beams atop a forest of minipiles reaching down to bedrock.

And in recent weeks, workers have dug out so much soil from around those minipiles that they have created an underpass beneath the subway large enough for construction machinery to pass through. In the reconstruction of the trade center, it is a significant milestone of east meeting west.

Eventually, as Dunlap tells us, the entire subway box for the 1 train will be resting on minipiles and will last as such while the construction crews fill in the gaps around it with various parts of a subterranean structure.

Now, I’m no engineer, but I love reading stories like this. There are so many unique aspects to the subways and the veritable city that exists under ground. Millions of riders on the 1 won’t ever know or notice that their trains are traveling over the ground while under the ground, but for those that do, it’s just another quirk in the New York City subways. And that, despite all of their problems, is what makes the subway so great.

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Service Advisories

A Subway Series weekend of service changes

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 16, 2008

For baseball fans in New York, this is as big a weekend as any three-game set in May can be. The Yankees and Mets square off for city-wide bragging rights in a three-game set in the Bronx.

This year, the two New York teams are decidedly mediocre, and both are coming off of weeks to forget. The Yankees dropped three of four to the first-place Tampa Bay Rays, scoring six runs in the process. The Mets dropped three of four to the last-place Washington Nationals and find themselves just a game over .500 as rumors of a managerial dismissal for Willie Randolph swirl.

For all of your Subway Series coverage — at least from a Yankee perspective — you can check out River Ave. Blues, my Yankee blog. For the weekend service advisories, keep on reading.


1 trains skip 28, 23, and 18 Sts in both directions
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

No 1 trains between 14 St and South Ferry
Take the 2 or 3 between 34 and Chambers Sts
Free shuttle buses run between Chambers St and South Ferry
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


Manhattan-bound 2 trains skip Jackson Av
May 18, 5 AM to 12 noon Sunday


2 and 3 trains run local between 96 and Chambers Sts
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


Manhattan-bound 4 trains skip Mosholu Pkwy, Bedford Park Blvd, Kingsbridge, Fordham Rds, and 183 St
May 17 – 18, 7 AM to 7 PM Sat and Sun


No 5 trains between 149 and East 180 Sts
Take the 2 instead
May 18, 5 AM to 12 noon, Sunday


The last stop for some Bronx-bound 6 trains is 3 Av
May 17 – 18, 4 AM Sat to 10 PM Sun

Bronx-bound 6 trains run express from Hunts Point Av to Parkchester
May 17 – 18, 4 AM Sat to 10 PM Sun


Uptown A trains skip Spring, 23, and 50 Sts
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

Free shuttle buses replace A trains between Far Rockaway and Beach 90 St
May 16 – 19, 11 PM Fri to 5 AM Mon

Free shuttle buses replace A trains between 168 and 207 Sts
Transfer between the Broadway or Fort Washington Av shuttle bus and the A train at 168 St
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


No C trains between 168 and 145 Sts
Take the A instead
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

Uptown C trains skip Spring, 23, and 50 Sts
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


Queens-bound E trains run on the V from 2 Av to 5 Av
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

No trains E between West 4 St and World Trade Center
Take the A instead
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

E trains run local from Queens Plaza to 71-Continental Avs
May 17 – 19, 12:30 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


Queens-bound F trains run on the V from 47-50 Sts to Roosevelt Av
May 17 – 19, 12:30 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


No G trains between Court Sq and 71-Continental Avs
Take the E or R instead
May 16 – 19, 8:30 PM Fri to 5 AM Mon


Queens-bound J trains run express from Myrtle Av to Broadway Junction
May 17 – 18, 4 AM Sat to 10 PM Sun


L trains run in two sections:
1. Between Union Sq and Bedford Av every 16 min, skipping 3 Av in both directions
2. Between Bedford Av and Rockaway Pkwy every 8 min with this exception: from 11:25 PM Fri to 1 AM Sat, trains run approximately every 30 min
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

No L trains between 8 Av and Union Sq
Use the M14 bus instead – Or walk. It’s faster.
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


Coney Island-bound N trains run on the D from 36 St to Stillwell Av
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

N trains run on the R between Canal St and DeKalb Av
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


Q trains run on the R between Canal St and DeKalb Av
May 17 – 19, 12:01 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon


No R trains between Queens Plaza and 71-Continental Avs
Take the E instead
May 17 – 19, 12:30 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon

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Fulton Street

Thirty days hath the MTA’s Fulton St. calendar

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 16, 2008

That dome is actually pretty ugly, no? (Source: MTA Capital Construction)

The Fulton St. Transit Hub sure has a long and tortured history. The MTA is halfway through building…something…at Fulton St. and they’ve nearly completely run out of money for the project based on their budget projections.

As I’ve detailed — sometimes painstakingly — the fun started in January when the MTA announced that the transit hub would be scaled back because of skyrocketed costs. Fulton St. residents objected and the MTA promised something in March and then, um, something in April. The only problem was that they didn’t say what they were promising, only that something would come, and they would tell us real soon.

Today, Julie Shapiro of Downtown Express picked up on the growing absurdity of this process and the MTA’s promises. Her article is a hilarious microcosm of bureaucratic ineptitude:

For the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, answers on the Fulton St. Transit Center continue to be 30 days away.

That’s how many days the agency said it needed back in January, after announcing that it ran out of money to build the Fulton St. Transit Center. Within 30 days, the M.T.A. promised, a revised plan would be on the table.

But at a City Council hearing in April, the M.T.A. again deferred all questions about what would be built over the hole in the ground at Broadway and Fulton Sts., where the M.T.A. demolished a row of buildings to make way for the glass-domed hub. City Councilmember John Liu demanded answers, and the M.T.A. repeated assurances that answers were coming — in 30 days.

Then, at the Community Board 1 World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee Monday night, the M.T.A. gave another update on the project. In response to specific questions about what the M.T.A. is planning to build, Uday Durg, the project manager, said he didn’t know yet, but he’d have answers in three to four weeks.

And that, folks, is why few big projects are completed in New York City anymore.

Meanwhile, check back sometime soon for the next round of updates on the Fulton St. Transit Hub. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from me on this again in, oh, 30 days.

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Fare HikesMetroCard

Answering Racked on the new prepackaged MetroCards

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 15, 2008

When the MTA introduced the new fare scheme and new 15 percent bonus system in March, the authority also revamped their prepackaged MetroCard program. Chief among the new pre-paid options were two pay-per-ride cards — one for the odd total of $17.39 and the other for the off-kilter sum of $52.17.

When a Racked reader got wind of these new fares, this person tried to find a conspiracy, and Racked bought into it. On Friday, they posted on what they called “The MTA’s ‘Brilliant’ Scam.” Their reader wrote:

Was wondering if you’d noticed the brilliant scam in progress at the MTA. They’ve changed the ‘prepackaged’ Metrocard values, such that you’re always left with a value less than one fare on the card. Whereas you used to be able to buy a $10 card, get $2 free (6 rides, exactly) and just throw out – I mean recycle – the used cards when done, now you have to save them because they’ve got values of .05 or $1.05 or $1.50 on them. They’re banking on people leaving this loose changed unused, right? WTF was broken about offering cards with an exact number of rides on ’em?

Racked itself was equally puzzled: “Though others have no doubt realized the new card policy is a bum deal for riders, we’re still puzzled as to what you are supposed to do with the left-over change on your Metrocard. Answers, anyone?”

Well, here’s your answer: There is no scam. The MTA just requires MetroCard buyers to have an advanced understanding of multiplication.

Under the new fare scheme, straphangers using pay-per-ride cards begin to accrue a bonus on purchases totaling $7 or more. Unlike the old scheme, when paying for 10 rides bought two free swipes, the new bonus is a good old fashioned 15 percent. With this convoluted math scheme in place, those odd amounts seemingly left over on the prepackaged cards disappear. It’s magic.

As you could guess, 15 percent of $17.39 is $2.61 cents, and 15 percent of $52.17 is $7.83. Therefore, those cards end up offering up $20 (or 10 rides) and $60 (or 30 rides) respectively. There is no scam: The cards still have the exact number of rides on them, and there is your answer to a non-controversy (for once) surrounding the MTA’s fare hike.

For the mathematically confused among us, online MetroCard bonus calculators abound. You have your choice of the NYC MetroCard Bonus Calculator, the New York City MetroCard Refill Calculator and the New York City MetroCard Calculator. A handy image of the amounts on the new pre-packaged MetroCards — only available at select Pay-O-Matics and other retailers in the city — is below.

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Second Avenue Subway

Fearmongering from the Post on the SAS

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 15, 2008

Oh, The Post. There’s nothing like it for a little bluster with your morning coffee. While one of my sites has sworn off sensationalized tabloid coverage, I haven’t done the same thing here, and Steve Cuozzo’s ripe for the picking today.

In a piece that brings up some very valid points, Steve Cuozzo rips into the MTA and Mayor Bloomberg for its approach to the Second Ave. Subway. Calling the project “traumatizing,” “farcically underbudgeted,” and “a joke,” Cuozzo rips into the MTA for pulling budget numbers out of thin air — which they didn’t — and calls on the agency to ensure adequate protocols are in place to finish the project.

Now, the latter point is a valid one. The city and the MTA should do everything under their combined powers to finish the job. But Cuozzo’s point is obscured by some need to be That Angry Guy and his over-the-top statements lessen the impact of his editorial. Take, for instance, this claim:

The MTA’s capital-budget summary (released in February) farcically underbudgets all that work at $4.34 billion. And it takes only common sense to appreciate what a pittance that is.

The MTA says it needs $1.1 billion for the Fulton project – not to lay an inch of track, buy new subway cars or build new stations, but just to rearrange underground platforms and build a pedestrian tunnel to Ground Zero. And in all likelihood, $1.1 billion won’t be enough, thanks to galloping building-trade inflation (as much as 5 percent, by some estimates).

By that light, it doesn’t take an engineer or an accountant to grasp that $4.34 billion for the Second Avenue Subway Phase 1 is a joke.

Cuozzo omits the fact that a segment of the Phase 1 tunnel already exists, and he fails to note that the MTA has already revised their budgets for the project upward. When the original budgets were released five years ago, those numbers made sense. Today, they don’t, and no one is claiming otherwise.

Meanwhile, his conclusion is a little absurd considering the historical tale of the Second Ave. Subway. “If they can’t come up with a viable plan, then work should stop before Second Avenue turns into a mess worse than Fulton Street – one from which a huge slice of Manhattan might never recover.”

A huge slice of Manhattan has recovered from three other attempts at building the Second Ave. Subway. If the MTA had to call it quits for a fourth time, I think once they patched up the streets, the memory of a fourth failed effort would simply enter city lore as another sad chapter in the Second Ave. Subway.

Cuozzo makes some good points: The MTA and the city have not been kind to merchants along Second Ave., and it’s been hard to assess the progress on the project with many residents saying they don’t see much happening above-ground. Of course, subway construction happens below-ground too, but that’s a conceptual leap people find hard to make. They want to see progress.

The MTA and the city should, as Cuozzo says, work out a way to 100 percent ensure the future of this subway line. But make your point without all the bluster, man.

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Congestion FeeFare Hikes

After the hike, MTA ridership still on the climb

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 15, 2008

The MTA is going your way at a record pace this year. (Graphic courtesy of The Daily News).

Just last week, I wondered how the fare hike would impact MTA ridership figures. Through February of this year, ridership was on pace to set a modern-day record, but the fare hike loomed.

Well, the numbers are out, and ridership continued to increase in March at near-record levels despite the fare hike. Through the first quarter of 2008, ridership on the commuter rail lines and the subways is up around 5 percent over the same time period from 2007. By the end of March, 393.7 million riders had swiped into the subways this year. The Daily News blames rising gas prices.

“Obviously, there’s been an enormous push by gas prices moving people from cars to mass transit, but that’s not the only factor,” Christopher Jones, vice president of research at the Regional Plan Association, said to the News. “The economy is getting weaker, tolls are going up and traffic congestion is getting worse.”

As the News notes, conditions are ripe for drivers to eschew their cars. The average price of a gallon of gas in the city is $3.97, up nearly 80¢ from last year; and with tolls up as well, the MTA saw a drop of nearly 2 percent in the volume of cars passing through their tolls. The Port Authority saw a drop of 1.5 percent. (The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has noted a similar decrease in the volume of cars on the New Jersey Turnpike.)

All of this brought the Daily News to a logical conclusion: Despite the moans from the anti-congestion pricing forces, charging drivers would actually get them off the roads, and the MTA would have had a dedicated revenue stream to address the higher ridership demands being placed on the system. In fact, the paper editorialized on that exact point yesterday:

The trends prove that the theory of congestion pricing was valid: When the cost of driving rises, people actually do switch to mass transit.

Opponents of imposing an $8 fee to cross the untolled East River bridges scoffed that motorists would never leave their cars. But the opponents were wrong, and mass transit riders are suffering for the error.

Had Silver and the Assembly passed congestion pricing, as the City Council did, the MTA would already be using that $354 million in federal aid (which has now been disbursed about the country) to make more bus and subway seats available.

Then, the congestion fee would have given the MTA a half-billion dollars a year to pay for big projects like completing the Second Ave. subway and extending LIRR service to Grand Central Terminal. When that money vanished, the MTA’s building plan was eviscerated.

The News takes an appropriately strident tone toward the Assembly, but I don’t think it’s a clear cut issue of dead or alive anymore. As gas prices continue to rise — What? You think they’re ever going back down? — MTA ridership will increase, and as public education campaigns continue, public sentiment will shift in favor of congestion pricing.

Congestion pricing isn’t dead; it’s simply dormant with many people working behind the scenes to plot the plan’s next move. In all likelihood, Richard Ravitch’s commission will recommend a form of congestion pricing to fund the MTA. And when that time comes, the plan’s proponents will have the facts and the knowledge to get this necessary improvement off the ground. It’s only a matter of time.

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AsidesCongestion Fee

Anti-congestion pricing Assembly rep wants more G service

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 14, 2008

One of the staunch opponents of congestion pricing — Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries — would like to see the MTA increase service along the G train, and Streetsblog takes him to task for his hypocrisy. G train service upgrades, you see, were part of the planned service increases the MTA was going to institute this year when congestion pricing passed. But due to the efforts of Jeffries and others of his ilk, congestion pricing failed and the service upgrades have been shelved for now. Jeffries had his chance and he went the other way. Now he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too. [Streetsblog]

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7 Line ExtensionHudson Yards

As Tishman deal collapses, Schumer and Bloomberg spar over development

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 14, 2008

As the Tishman Speyer deal for the Hudson Yards collapsed completely on Tuesday, tempers have flared over the fate of development along the West Side. In one corner, we have Sen. Chuck Schumer fighting for Moynihan Station and office space in and around Penn Station. In the other corner, we have Mayor Mike Bloomberg, 18 months away from heading out of office and in search of a lasting New York City legacy.

The stakes in this political death match are high: They start with the 7 train extension and end with nothing short of a radical alteration of the Manhattan landscape west of Midtown. How it will end is anyone’s guess, but with Tishman Speyer out and the MTA back in negotiations with other potential Yards suitors, the battle has just begun.

The troubles started when talks between the MTA and Tishman Speyer collapsed late last week. While the Bloomberg administration put pressure on the two groups to keep trying this week and even promised to have the city cover the cost overruns for the 7 extension — but not necessarily that controversial station at 41st and 10th Ave. — things died for good today.

With this development, Schumer, long skeptical of the 7 line funding, took this opportunity to push for a project that he considers to be more viable than the Hudson Yards plans. Speaking on Monday at a Crain’s Business Forum, Schumer renewed his calls for Penn Station-focused development:

Mr. Schumer, in laying out his vision for the area at a Crain’s Breakfast Forum, said the mayor should stop funding a $500 million boulevard on the far West Side and instead build a second subway station on the extension of the No. 7 line. (Emphasis added.)

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s push for a 16-million-square-foot project at Hudson Yards, strongly encouraged by the city, suffered a setback last week when talks with its chosen developer, Tishman Speyer, broke down. Although Mr. Schumer said, “I am enthusiastic about Hudson Yards,” he said no one would build office space there until the No. 7 extension is in place.

Instead, he said, government should push for more office space by Penn Station, which has one-sixth as much as the Grand Central Terminal area despite serving more commuters.

Schumer and I are on the same page in regards to the 7 line extension, but Schumer and the Mayor disagree over the role of the Port Authority. The Senior Senator from New York would have the Port Authority assume control of this plan. Bloomberg, meanwhile, will have none of it because the Port Authority can’t even seem to get its act together in Lower Manhattan. It’s a grand ol’ political war of words.

On the MTA front, the agency will in all likelihood push hard to wrap up a deal with another suitor. They need the money for their capital budget, and Charles Bagli at City Room reported that Douglas Durst, Stephen Ross and Steven Roth, three other developers interested in the space, are now back on the table. While Durst would have once offered up just $39 million less than Tishman Speyer, that figure is sure to drop, leaving many to wonder why no one raised red flags with Tishman’s offer before it was accepted. The demands that eventually quashed the talks were not new.

Photo of Moynihan Station via Moynihan Station on flickr.

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AsidesHudson Yards

Tishman Speyer out at Hudson Yards

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 13, 2008

The press release arrived a few minutes ago: “The MTA met today with Tishman Speyer. Despite the best efforts of both sides, a final agreement could not be reached. The MTA has now re-entered discussions with other interested developers and remains committed to timely development of these unique and valuable parcels of land on Manhattan’s Far West Side.”

The MTA will now lose some of the promised $1 billion as the economy is weaker, and they are no longer in a strong negotiating position. Meanwhile, the issues surrounding the funding of the 7 line extension remains, and Senator Schumer has begun to push for a focus on redevelopment near Madison Square Garden and Penn Station instead.

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