MTA Politics

Again, MTA set to survey customers

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on May 1, 2008

The MTA really likes its surveys these days. The survey-love started out with the subway rider report cards. That project has since taken to the buses as well. And on Wednesday, word came down that the MTA will begin yet another customer survey.

According to this authority’s press release, this latest survey will be distributed to 170,000 residents from around the city and will aim to assess New Yorkers’ travel patterns. From the release:

A randomly selected sample of 170,000 residents will receive letters asking for their participation in the survey. Soon after, an independent survey firm, NuStats / PTV DataSource, will make follow-up phone calls to ask them questions about their use of transit and other modes of travel. The MTA hopes all New Yorkers who receive the packet will participate — even if they do not take transit or travel much — as the findings will help MTA plan future transit service improvements and infrastructure enhancements. A copy of the questionnaire will accompany the letter so New Yorkers who do not have a landline telephone or have an unlisted number can fill it out and mail it back, postage paid. They can also choose to call a toll free number to take the survey over the phone…

The survey takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete over the phone. Questions include: “Where and when did your trip originate?”; “Where and when did it end?”; “Did you make intermediate stops?”; “What was the purpose of your trip or trips?”; “What mode of transportation did you use?” The survey will also ask New Yorkers demographic questions, such as their age and how many automobiles they own.

MTA officials meanwhile encouraged everyone to participate. “The information we’re asking for,” Lawrence Fleischer, MTA’s Chief of Metropolitan Planning, said “will be kept confidential and will assist us in understanding how New Yorkers travel and how we can better meet their transportation needs.”

If that isn’t encouragement enough, the MTA is also resorting to the age-old survey trick of bribery. The Authority will be making good use of its currently precarious financial situation by handing out $500 to one lucky survey participant each week that the survey is open.

On the surface, the MTA is going to find out the same information they discovered following the rider report cards: Every subway rider will demand more frequent service for the lines he or she uses most. Every subway rider will note that rush hour overcrowding is a problem no matter the line, and every rider will bemoan the PA system and general state of the underground stations. Why then does the MTA need to conduct yet another survey?

Well, the answer, it seems, lies in a few obligations the Authority has to fulfill in order to secure federal capital funding for the Second Ave. subway and the East Side Access plan. The MTA is required to build a ridership profile and will do so using these survey results and the findings from similar questionnaires distributed to riders on their regional rail system as well. That’s all well and good, but we already know what the findings will be.

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View from Underground

A SubTalk change, in verse

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 30, 2008

There once were some placards with rhyme
To destroy them would be quite a crime.
But the MTA
They did say
Poetry in Motion simply ran out of time.

After 15 years of verse in our heart,
SubTalk will now turn to history and art.
E.B. White and Galileo
Don’t flow quite like Longfellow.
But now we’ll know more about Descartes.

Train of Thought this new program is called.
Alicia Martinez hopes riders will be enthralled.
The Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
really enjoys these new creations,
and this week they will all be installed.

These new excerpts will come in twos
Every three months you’ll have more to peruse
And with funding from Barnes & Noble,
a much better company than ExxonMobil,
it’s more educational than television news.

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Congestion FeeCTA

New York giveth away and Chicago taketh

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 30, 2008

Lucky Chicago. They aren’t afraid of change and progress, and now the Windy City is getting what should be ours if it hadn’t been for Sheldon Silver and his crony of cowardly representatives.

When New York decided not to adopt congestion pricing, the City forfeited around $354 million that would have gone toward anti-congestion measures as part of the new National Strategy to Reduce Congestion. Since our wonderful leaders don’t seem too concerned with reducing congestion, the feds instead decided to dole out $153 million to Chicago. That city will implement a bus rapid transit system with dedicated lanes and ramped-up enforcement as well as variable-rate parking meters.

Los Angeles — the king of congestion — will receive over $200 million that will go toward implementing a tolling system designed to encourage car-pooling and other high-occupancy vehicle commuting. I prefer Chicago’s plan, but the one in Los Angeles is not without merit.

Catrin Einhorn of The Times has the story:

In Chicago, officials said Tuesday that they planned to use $153 million for projects like creating the first 10 miles of lanes dedicated to faster buses that make fewer stops and set off sensors that lengthen green traffic lights and shorten red ones. To discourage driving downtown, meters and parking lots there would charge more during peak traffic times.

In Los Angeles, which would receive $213 million, officials said high-occupancy vehicle lanes would be converted to toll lanes. Cars with three or more people would be exempt from paying. The federal money would also finance bus service in the new toll lanes.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, through a spokesman, applauded the efforts of both cities.

“While it’s sad that Washington, which most Americans agree is completely dysfunctional, is more willing to try new approaches to long-standing problems than Albany is,” Mr. Bloomberg’s press secretary, Stu Loeser, said, “we’re glad other places aren’t as allergic to innovation.”

Mayor Bloomberg is clearly still smarting from the defeat of his groundbreaking (in the U.S., at least) congestion pricing plan. He’s not the only one. “We’re disappointed that New York didn’t get it,” Tyler D. Duvall, acting under secretary for policy for the Department of Transportation, said to The Times, “but we’re extremely happy to have the opportunity to work with L.A. and Chicago.”

For New York, the blow stings a bit. Chicago, in particular, is adopting measures that New York really needs and should have. At a time when many are noting that our own BRT system may be delayed a few years, Chicago’s gain is New York’s loss.

We could have had BRT money; we could have had funds for traffic reduction programs and public transit expansion. Instead, we have risk-averse politicians who wouldn’t even put the plan up for a floor vote, and we get to sit back at Chicago enjoys the money that could have been ours. That’s some example to set as a global city in 2008.

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Subway MoviesView from Underground

The Photographing of Pelham 1-2-3

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 29, 2008

Live from the subways, it’s The Remaking of Pelham 1-2-3. New York’s seminal subway movie from the 1970s, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 stands a classic view of both the subways and the city frozen in a moment of time. Today, Tony Scott is remaking the film with Denzel Washington, John Travolta and James Gandolfini. I’m not so optimistic that this remake will have the charmed and humor of the original, but, hey, we’ve got pictures of the site.

As you can see, Denzel Washington, an MTA employee with a gun up there, doesn’t look too amused, and I’m just terrified of the idea of a friendly MTA station agent packing heat. Whudat and WireImage have some more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

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Subway Security

Coming soon-ish: cameras in the subway cars

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 29, 2008

Get ready to smile for your MTA overlords. Over a year after the MTA first started grumbling about putting security cameras in subway cars, the security plan may get off the ground sometime this year. Or maybe next year. No one really knows yet.

What we do know is that the MTA will begin one of their pilot programs that will see suveillance cameras in subway cars. This program isn’t about terrorism; it’s about subway security and vandalism, plain and simple. New York 1 has more:

An initiative to put surveillance cameras onboard subway cars took another small step forward Monday as the MTA announced a pilot program to install cameras on two subway cars.

The prototype cars will be the new R160 model, now in service on the L, N, J, M and Z lines.

Transit officials say there is no timetable in place yet, but that the pilot could be underway late this year or early next.

A similar pilot is already underway on buses. About half the Manhattan bus fleet has been outfitted with cameras as part of a $5 million pilot program, which officials say has been successful in combating vandalism.

Now, that’s quite the pilot program. Installing cameras in two subway cars should have the same deterrent effect as asking shouting an empty car while its alarm is going off for 50 minutes in a row. But joking aside, it’s about time.

At first, when the MTA announced their desires for security cameras in the subway, I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea on privacy grounds. Did we really want someone spying on us at all hours of the day as we ride the subways?

But as more and more officials spoke about the need for cameras, I warmed up to the idea. As it is, the city is awash in surveillance cameras, and placing cameras on the subways should make potential perps think twice about the crimes they may commit. Hopefully, cameras would cut back on subway vandalism and incidents of harassment on trains simply by their virtue of existence.

Civil libertarians concerned with privacy have reason to object, but I feel the good of the cameras far outweighs the bad. And besides, no one is going to track down hours of worthless tape for the sake of spying. The videos instead should be used as a review mechanism for crimes committed.

It is of course a bit dismaying that this pilot program won’t get off the ground for months and that it will encompass few cars. In Washington, D.C, and London, the Metro and the Underground have long been outfitted with cameras. While we could argue long and hard about the successes and failures of the cameras in those two cities, the fact that the surveillance programs even exist should be enough for the MTA to roll out more than a two-car test run. As is it, this is an idea long past due.

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AsidesBuses

Critiquing COMMUTE’s BRT plan

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 28, 2008

While this morning I praised COMMUTE’s Bus Rapid Transit plan for the way it connects the city’s boroughs, not everyone believes this to be the best plan. Regular SAS commenter and fellow blogger Cap’n Transit offered up his issues with the COMMUTE plan. In short, he doesn’t feel that the COMMUTE plan brings low-income residents who don’t have nearby subway access to their jobs. These routes, he writes, “don’t seem to go to very many obvious low-wage job centers.” It is a valid argument and one that bears further scrutiny as New York heads toward an age of BRT. [Cap’n Transit Rides Again]

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Buses

Proposing a better Bus Rapid Transit system

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 28, 2008

COMMUTE’s BRT system would unite boroughs in ways the subway system cannot. (Source: COMMUTE’s proposed BRT route map PDF)

One of the great casualties of the congestion pricing failure was the $112 million earmarked for bus rapid transit implementation. While the city missed out on this significant federal contribution, NYC’s Department of Transportation has not allowed that to deter their BRT plans, and they’ve already made significant strides this year with more planned for the next few months.

While the city’s BRT goals are admirable, many transit advocates feel they do not go far enough in supplementing subway service and providing smoother interborough travel. Last week, Joan Byron , director of the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative at the Pratt Center for Community Development, discussed the Pratt Center’s COMMUTE and their bus rapid transit proposal. It is a far-reaching one that would revolutionize travel through and among the five boroughs:.

Byron writes:

A small but growing number of transit advocates and riders who know what BRT is are clamoring for more routes. COMMUTE!…wants the BRT routes to cross bridges and connect the boroughs, making buses a more serious complement to the subway system.

The pilot program confined each route to its respective borough, so that the Rogers Avenue/Nostrand Avenue route in Brooklyn would serve a dense and underserved slice of East Flatbush, Crown Heights and Bushwick – but then dump passengers at Williamsburg Bridge plaza, presumably to elbow their way onto already full J, M and Z trains to get into Manhattan. Since the transportation department is already planning to put a dedicated bus lane on the Williamsburg Bridge, it would be logical to connect the Brooklyn BRT route to the also-planned First/Second Avenue BRT.

With both the one-time shot of federal funding and the projected $500 million per year in net revenues from congestion pricing off the table for the moment, BRT may be more important than ever … As the rail and subway projects envisioned in [the MTA Capital Plan] recede into the future, BRT makes more sense than ever. It will not prevent us from building light rail or subways in the future, but for now it makes intelligent use of the infrastructure we already have – our streets.

Byron’s plan is shown in the map above this post, and you can see a side-by-side comparison of COMMUTE’s plan and DOT’s proposals in this map.

My initial reaction to the Pratt plan was one of skepticism. Why would the city need BRT lines running on streets above — or, in some cases, below — preexisting subway lines? Couldn’t these BRT routes simply dump their passengers at subway terminals?

As Byron notes, however, BRT could accomplish the noble goal of reducing or, at least, avoiding further overcrowding on the subway. If BRT lines originating in areas of the city that are not subway-accessible were to transport riders to subway hubs, the trains would just be that much more crowded. But if the BRT lines provided one-seat rides from, say, Starrett City to the West Side, the subways wouldn’t see a marked increase in ridership. Meanwhile, the BRT routes would keep cars off the road and would hopefully alleviate congestion. Prioritizing signals would hopefully discourage drivers as well.

The city is, as we well know, at a crossroads in terms of its transportation policy. The MTA is trying to find billions of billions of dollars to get a capital plan off the ground, and the city is trying to figure out how to solve a congestion problem. COMMUTE’s ambitious plan would go alone way toward providing public transit to those under-served areas while relieving the city streets of traffic. Considering the low costs of implementation, it certainly deserves a good, hard look.

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MTA PoliticsService Advisories

Sander, weekend service changes not going away

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 25, 2008

Current MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander was one of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s more prominent appointees. Sander, a celebrated transit expert, replaced a real estate maven and has brought more accountability and responsibility to the MTA.

When Spitzer stepped down, speculation ran rampant through Albany that Gov. David Patterson would replace some of Spitzer’s top appointees with his own men. When Anthony Shorris was ousted as head of the Port Authority, Sander’s job looked like it could have been on the line too. But Patterson wouldn’t replace a highly-qualified Sander at the head of the MTA.

As the Times Herald-Record — a three-named newspaper — reported this week, Sander will be sticking around as head of the MTA. “Lee is committed to remaining at the MTA and he has the full confidence of the governor,” MTA Spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.

Sounds good to me. I’ve longed believed that Sander is the right man for the job, and despite the public beating it takes, the MTA has shown signs of improvement under his reign.

And now on with the weekend service changes.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, downtown 1 and 2 trains skip 66th, 59th and 50th Streets due to station rehabilitation at 59th Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, uptown 15 trains skip 79th and 86th Streets due to station rehabilitation at 96th Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, uptown 2 trains replace the 5 from Nevins to 149th Street and uptown 5 trains replace the 2 from Chambers Street to 149th Street. These changes are due to several projects, including station rehab work at Chambers Street and Wall Street and tunnel lighting work in the Clark Street tunnel. – You gotta do that whole “switch at Bowling Green” thing here. More details available here.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, there are no 3 trains running between New Lots Avenue and 14th Street due to tunnel lighting work in the Clark Street tunnel. Customers should take the 4 train instead.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 10 p.m. Sunday, April 27, Bronx-bound 4 trains skip 170th Street, Mt. Eden Avenue, and 176th Street due to track panel installation between 167th Street and Burnside Avenue stations.


From 11 p.m. Friday, April 25 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, downtown 4, 5 and 6 trains run express from 125th to Grand Central due to a concrete pour on tracks between 86th and 96th Street stations.


From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, April 27, Manhattan-bound 6 trains run express from Pelham Bay Park to Parkchester due to switch replacement south of Pelham Bay Park station.


From 11 p.m. Friday, April 25 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, free shuttle buses replace trains between Far Rockaway and Beach 90th Street due to track panel installation between Beach 67th Street and Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue stations.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, there is no C train service between 145th Street and 168th Street. Customers should take the A instead. Free shuttle buses replace A trains between 168th Street and 207th Street. Transfer is available between the Broadway or Ft. Washington Avenue shuttle buses and A trains at 168th Street. These service changes are necessary due to tunnel lighting between 168th and 207th Street and roadbed replacement at 175th Street.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, uptown AC trains skip Spring, 23rd and 50th Streets due to Chambers Street signal modernization.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, Bronx-bound D trains run local from West 4th Street to 34th Street due to track conduit and cable work between 47th-50th Streets and 57th Street stations.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, there are no E trains between West 4th Street and World Trade Center due to Chambers Street signal modernization. Customers should take the A instead.


From 12:30 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, Queens-bound ER trains run express from Roosevelt Avenue to Forest Hills-71st Avenue due to conduit work between Roosevelt Avenue and Forest Hills-71st Avenue stations.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, Queens-bound F trains run on the E line from West 4th Street to Roosevelt Avenue due to track conduit and cable work between 47th-50th Streets and 57th Street stations.


From 8:30 a.m. Friday, April 25 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Court Square due to conduit work between Roosevelt Avenue and Forest Hills-71st Avenue stations. Customers should take the E or R trains instead.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, there are no L trains between 8th Avenue and Union Square due to concrete chip-out between 3rd Avenue and Bedford Avenue stations. Customers should take the M14 bus instead.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, L trains run in two sections due to concrete chip-out between 3rd Avenue and Bedford Avenue stations:

  • Between Union Square and Bedford Avenue every 16 minutes, skipping 3rd Avenue in both directions and
  • Between Bedford Avenue and Rockaway Parkway every 8 minutes


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 26 to 5 a.m. Monday, April 28, Brooklyn-bound NR trains are rerouted over the Manhattan Bridge from Canal Street to DeKalb Avenue due to subway tunnel rehabilitation between Prince and Whitehall Streets.


From 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, April 26 and Sunday, April 27, Q trains run in two sections due to rail renewal between Ocean Parkway and Stillwell Avenue stations:

  • Between 57th Street and Brighton Beach and
  • Between Brighton Beach and Stillwell Avenue.
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AsidesSubway Security

The subways, now with submachine guns

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 25, 2008

I introduced you in February to the plans to bring armed security personnel into the subway. Yesterday, SUBWAYblogger saw a few of the first armed teams dispatched as part of Operation Torch, and today, the Daily News writes about rider reaction the underground submachine guns. Makeda Mays-Green summed it up: “I just got off the subway on my way to work and there are cops with big rifles. It’s pretty intimidating.” [SUBWAYblogger, Daily News]

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Abandoned Stations

Twenty years later, an oft-ignored entrance remains closed

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 25, 2008

Thousands of people walk past this subway entrance at 52nd and 8th, unaware of its history. (Photo by RJ Mickelson for amNew York)

We started the week with a tale about a doomed abandoned platform at 42nd and 8th Ave. Let’s end the week ten blocks north standing outside a gated subway entrance at 52nd St. and 8th Ave.

In what very well might be the best story to appear in the pages of amNew York — sorry, Chris — Matthew Sweeney explores the history of a subway entrance that has sat closed since 1991, and no one really knows what it was doing there in the first place. The article is part of a two-parter in Friday’s amNew York about some of the partnerships the MTA has formed with the buildings that climb high above their stations. The other piece focuses on the MTA’s tortured relationships with its escalators.

Sweeney gives us the history:

Paid for with private funds in 1986 — when the misbegotten K train still ran — the subway entrance at Eighth Avenue and 52nd Street has been gated and locked for nearly two decades.

It’s been shut for so long New York City Transit on Thursday could not remember when or why it ordered the gates locked. Transit officials also couldn’t say whether it will ever be open again. “It’s kind of ridiculous,” said real estate developer Adam Rose, who built the stairwell entrance to what is now the uptown C and E train platform. “The day after it opened, they closed it.”

Rose’s memory is not entirely accurate. For a brief period the entrance was open at off hours. But even then, it was not always open when it was supposed to be, said Andrew Albert, chairman of the NYC Transit Riders Council. According to Albert, the entrance was permanently closed after a woman was stabbed in the stairway in 1991.

The article doesn’t explain why the MTA has decided to close the entrance and why it was never fully staffed in the first place leading up to the Linda Belle stabbing. The building, according to Rose, was forced to construct the entrance by the MTA. Now, it sits empty, a late-1980s subway map hanging on the wall and trash collecting at the bottom of the stairwell.

Say what you will about MTA management in this instance, but stories like these are why I love the subways. While we see a lot of the system on the surface just by passing through, so many of the quirky stories behind its nooks and crannies are lost to time. You’ve got art in abandoned stations and artistic stations long since abandoned. We think of the subway map as static, but train lines head up different avenues and switch stops seemingly on a whim over the years.

The next time I walk past 52nd St. and 8th Ave., I’ll stop for a minute or two to take in an entrance I’ve seen and ignored countless times over the course of my life. One day, it may have a purpose; today, it’s just another one of New York’s great subway what if’s.

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