Fare Hikes

Breaking: Planned service upgrades shelved, for now

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 24, 2008

Who had March 24th in the “We’re going to delay service upgrades after the fare hike” pool? After talking up service additions across the board, the MTA is unsurprisingly postponing the planned upgrades due to lower-than-expected real estate tax revenues and a generally shaky economy.

William Neuman, writing on City Room, has more of the bad news:

Subway and bus riders are about to feel the impact of the slowing real estate market and Wall Street turbulence. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has postponed a $30 million package of service improvements that it had promised to riders as a way to sweeten the pill of a fare increase, which went into effect at the beginning of this month…

Officials had previously warned that the beefed-up service would only be approved if the authority produced healthy financial results in the first three months of the year.

But the authority revealed today that the money it receives from taxes on real estate transactions had fallen significantly in February and March.

Gary J. Dellaverson, the chief financial officer of the authority, called the economic outlook “gloomy” and used words like “frightening” and “dramatic” to describe the fall in real estate-related revenues.

The agency has taken in $21 million less than forecast, and officials are concerned that Wall Street layoffs could depress ridership and fare revenue. In my opinion, the latter is a bit of a red herring because even if a few firms layoff a few hundred employees, millions of other people are still riding the subways each day.

MTA skeptics won’t be surprised by this latest development. To them, it’s business as usual with the MTA, and so far, the agency hasn’t said when the upgrades — which were supposed to include more G service and later hours for B and W trains as well as more trains along the 1, 4 and 6 lines — will be enacted, if ever. Considering the state of the economy, we could be in a for a long wait.

Meanwhile, this news is bound to fuel the fires of the congestion pricing opponents. If the MTA can’t even make good on its fare hike service promises, will they really be able to take the revenues from congestion pricing to provide the service we need? This news cast a pall over what had been a pretty good year for the MTA. It is a sad day for New York City subway riders indeed.

New York City Transit token photo by flickr user photoshoparama.

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BusesRider Report Cards

MTA gearing up to grade the buses

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 24, 2008

Call it No Public Transit Left Behind. After receiving grades for its subways and express buses, New York City Transit is now turning its attention toward the sluggish local bus service that dominates our roadways.

Beginning this morning, bus riders in Staten Island will have the opportunity to fill out rider report cards for their local buses. The program will eventually make its way to the other boroughs as well.

Similar to the subway report card process, riders will be asked to grade the buses along 19 different criteria and issue an overall grade. These topics are bus-specific, but upon a closer examination, I believe NYC Transit could eliminate most of the categories and still receive thorough evaluations. Take a look at the categories:

1 Reasonable wait times between buses
2 Seat availability
3 Smooth handling of buses
4 Clarity of bus destination sign
5 Current schedule information at bus stop
6 Bus operates according to schedule
7 Cleanliness of buses
8 Lack of graffiti on buses
9 Lack of scratchitti on buses
10 Courtesy of bus operators
11 Courtesy of bus dispatchers
12 Comfortable temperature in buses
13 Ease of paying your fare
14 Bus announcements routinely made
15 Bus announcements that are informative
16 Reliability of kneeling buses (front of bus)
17 Reliability of wheelchair lifts (rear of bus)
18 Bus personnel properly secure wheelchairs
19 Overall performance

A lot of these categories — wheelchair use especially — are redundant and obvious. In fact, I’d say these surveys are redundant and obvious. Ask any New Yorker to critique the bus system, and no one will be too concerned with scratchitti or graffiti. Rather, they will complain about slow speeds through the city streets and unreliable schedules. They will complain about bus bunching and gruff bus drivers. They’ll complain about inefficient boarding procedures and stops — particularly on north-south routes — that are just too close together.

Instead of investing time and energy into a rider report card program that is designed to cover hundreds of bus lines across five boroughs, the MTA could implement a few simple measures to speed up and improve bus service. They could work with DOT to figure out a dedicated bus lane system. They should implement pre-board fare processing. They should work to eliminate stops on avenues. Do buses really need to stop every two blocks? Every three or four blocks would be more than sufficient.

“This survey will measure your experience with our service and help us direct our resources to the areas where they are most needed,” NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said in an introductory letter to the surveys.

Your areas, Mr. Roberts, are right here, and these surveys will simply confirm this post. Mark my words: These rider report card results will not contain any surprises.

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Congestion FeeService Advisories

On the brink of a weekend, Paterson announces congestion support

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 21, 2008

Big News: The already-embattled new governor David Paterson has announced his support of congestion pricing. There’s hope for transit in New York City yet.

“Congestion Pricing addresses two urgent concerns of the residents of New York City and its suburbs: the need to reduce congestion on our streets and roads, and thereby reduce pollution and global warming; and the need to raise significant revenue for mass transit improvements,” Governor Paterson said. “We expect that revenue from the Congestion Pricing plan will support more than $4.5 billion in needed capital improvements for mass transit and meaningfully reduce traffic into the Central Business District of Manhattan.”

Mayor Bloomberg was pleased to hear this news as well. “Today, Governor Paterson has demonstrated true leadership by submitting a congestion pricing bill to the Legislature that will meet all of the objectives we’ve set – cutting traffic and reducing pollution to improve our economy and public health, and raising revenue to fund much needed projects included in the MTA Capital Plan,” he said. “We will work with the Governor and our partners in the State Legislature and the City Council to address outstanding issues – including reducing the impact on lower income drivers, and concerns about commuters who use Port Authority crossings contributing to the MTA Capital plan.”

Now we just wait to see how this game plays out.

On to the service changes:


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, there are no 1 trains between 14th Street and South Ferry. Customers may take the 2 or 3 between 34th Street and Chambers Street. Free shuttle buses are available between Chambers Street and South Ferry. These changes are necessary due to underpinning work at Cortlandt Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, 2 and 3 trains run local between 96th Street and Chambers Street due to underpinning work at Cortlandt Street.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 10 p.m. Sunday, March 23, Bronx-bound 4 trains run express from 149th Street-Grand Concourse to Burnside Avenue due to track panel work north of 167th Street station.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, no 5 trains between Bowling Green and Brooklyn Bridge due to signal work at Bowling Green. Customers should take the 4 instead.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 10 p.m. Sunday, March 23, Flushing-bound 7 trains run express from Queensboro Plaza to Willets Point due to track panel work south of 74th Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, there is no C train service; customers should take the A instead. A trains run local between 168th Street and Euclid Avenue with these exceptions: Brooklyn-bound A trains run on the F line from West 4th Street to Jay Street (due to Chambers Street signal modernization) and Manhattan-bound A trains run express from Utica Avenue to Hoyt-Schermerhorn due to track work.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, uptown F trains skip 14th Street and 23rd Street due to track work between West 4th and 34th Streets.


From 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 21 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, there are no G trains between Forest Hills-71st Avenue and Court Square due to track cable work between Roosevelt Avenue and Forest Hills-71st Avenue.

From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 22 and Sunday, March 23, Manhattan-bound J trains skip Flushing Avenue, Lorimer and Hewes Sts. due to rail replacement between Myrtle and Marcy Avenues.


From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 22, free shuttle buses replace L trains between Broadway Junction and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs. due to track work at Broadway Junction, Bushwick Avenue-Aberdeen Street and Wilson Avenue.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, Coney Island-bound N trains run on the D line from 36th Street (Brooklyn) to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue due to track panel installation between 8th Avenue and 86th Street.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, Q trains run local between 57th Street and Canal Street in both directions due to a concrete pour south of 42nd Street-Times Square.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 22 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 24, Queens-bound R trains run express from Queens Plaza to Roosevelt Avenue, then local to 179th Street due to track cable work between 36th Street and Roosevelt Avenue.

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View from Underground

An L train tale told in pictures

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 21, 2008

Ride the L train long enough, and the digital signs will get around to asking you the following question, posed in three parts:

So did you, dear rider, ever think you would be able to charge a subway ride? Did you know that you could use a debit or credit card to buy a new MetroCard at MetroCard Vending Machines? Have you know that since these hulking monstrosities were first introduced to the city over eight years ago?

That the question exists isn’t even the saddest part. Rather, the L trains have been broadcasting this PSA non-stop since the R143s were introduced to the line in 2001. Seven years later, we all know that we can charge our MetroCards, and it really wasn’t that shocking in the first place. Time for a new sign.

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MTA

Inside NYC Transit’s line manager program

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 20, 2008

When the MTA, in December, announced plans to add more line managers and, seemingly, another layer of bureaucracy to an overburdened agency, I noted that the leadership were staking a lot on this program. Meanwhile, the transit experts did not believe the program would succeed because the line managers wouldn’t have the necessary autonomy.

Well, the line managers have been in place on the 7 and L lines for a few months now, and the results are slowly trickling in. So far, we’ve seen a mixed bag of improvements. The MTA likes to tout their ability to finish the 7 line work this winter ahead of schedule as a sign that the line manager system is working. However, favorable weather did as much to speed up the work as anything else.

On the public front, the MTA is pushing hard to stress the importance of a program about which the public should still be skeptical. The latest look at the line manager comes in the form of a lengthy piece on ProgressiveRailroading.com. Jeff Stagl, the magazine’s managing editor, goes in depth on the line managers, and his work leaves me with many of the same questions I had coming in. An excerpt:

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority agency’s subway division has a “stovepipe” organizational structure that’s poorly integrated because each department functions as a silo, says [NYC Transit President Howard] Roberts. As a result, the world’s second-largest subway system by size and third-largest by ridership is slow to identify and rectify operational shortcomings. For example, it might take a year to repair a broken speaker in one of NYCT’s 468 stations because it takes time for a work order to be drawn up, wind its way through several departments and continue changing hands, says Roberts.

So, he’s trying to decentralize NYCT to create a management structure that functions in unison — and with less bureaucracy — to speed decision-making and work processes.

“The scope of the system is staggering,” says Roberts. “We’re reorganizing to reduce that scale.”

The article then goes on to detail the ways in which the MTA is trying to get in touch with its customers and how the line managers should make things better. But I foresee a bureaucratic challenge: While Roberts says the MTA is trying to reduce scale, the plans call for line managers on 22 subway lines who will report to group managers. Who knows how far up the chain managers will run, but this just seems like a reorganization of the current system rather than a complete overhaul.

Bits and pieces of the story stick out as well. Faced with cleanliness problems, the MTA attempted to rectify a poor situation. Supposedly, one person was responsible for cleaning five stations in an eight-hour shift. By adding 313 cleaners, NYCT now has 1430 on staff and, thankfully, they “changed cleaning processes so one employee isn’t responsible for numerous stations.” But with over three times as many cleaners as stations, mathematically, NYCT could allocate three cleaners each to spend eight hours cleaning one station each day. The subway system certainly doesn’t appear as clean as it should by my count.

Institutional problems such as these will continue to plague NYCT and the MTA until a better system of horizontal integration occurs. We can continue to add more and more line managers, but does that solve or exacerbate a problem of bureaucracy? Stagl’s piece is well worth the read to see how the MTA plans to solicit more rider feedback, and the agency should be applauded for these efforts. But the changes that grow out of the feedback don’t seem to cut it quite yet.

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Subway Romance

Finding love on the subway

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

Maybe there’s love to be found on the subway after all. (Photo by flickr user your pal Matt)

When Patrick Moberg set eyes upon the cute girl sitting across from him, he shared an experience with every New York male: He fell in love with the cute girl on the subway. As we know, Moberg was too shy to talk to Camille Hayton, and so he set up a Web site. Boy meets girl; boy sets up Web site; boy gets girl.

At the time, the media reported this story as though Moberg’s experiences were somehow unique. He had the guts to post his subway crush on a Web site; let’s get him on Good Morning, America. Of course, as anyone knows, Moberg is not alone. The Craigslist Missed Connections list is chock full o’ subway stories. And that is where we enter these musings on subway romances.

The subways are the great irony of the New York City dating scene. Single folk in New York would rather subject themselves to the pain of trying to find a date in a crowded bar or club than talk to that cute stranger they see everyday on the subway. The person in the club is bound to be just as unhinged as the early-morning straphanger heading to work. But at least you have two things in common with your fellow subway riders: You both ride the same train, and you both have jobs. That must count for something.

It would be easy to strike up a conversation with the guy in the suit or the girl with the curly hair, right? You see each other every day. You ride the same train at the same time; you get on the same set of doors at the same stop; and one of you must know at which stop the other gets off. Just take the plunge.

But it’s just not that easy, right? We live in an insular world on the subway. It’s a means of transportation, and we like to stay anonymous in the train. The people who ride the 2 with you everyday from 96th St to Chelsea, who are they? We see the same people on the same train day after day and never say anything.

Instead, on the trains, we are hide behind our books, our magazines, our iPods, our sleep. Why? It’s an ideal social situation to meet someone different. But the subways remind us that New York is very, very big. While we may see the same few people everyday if we’re on the same train at the same time, we also see hundreds of people once and then never again. It’s a bit daunting, and when a stranger breaks that code of silence, we have to acknowledge the thousands and millions of people we never will know or see again.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Look at those Missed Connections. This guy had an easy opening; the woman wanted wanted him to talk to her, it seems. This guy just feels dumb. This girl leaves a vague message on Craigslist and won’t talk to her crush while he reads The Blind Watchmaker.

Imagine how nicer New York would be if we started talking to the people who caught our eyes in the subway. Maybe just a friendly “hullo” to break the ice would suffice. You never know what might happen, and I’m sure it’s more successful than the myriad frustrations expressed in Craigslist. After all, as the MTA is wont to remind us, if you see something, say something.

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MTA Technology

MTA earns ‘Best of New York’ recognition for TripPlanner

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 18, 2008

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the MTA’s Web site.

On the one hand, it’s a great resource for many things MTA. They’ve got press releases, maps, schedules and construction information up the wazoo. But on the other hand, there’s no rhyme or reason to the structure, and vital parts go without updates for months or years in certain cases. It also had this inconvenient tendency to crash under the load of heavy traffic.

While the MTA has quietly improved the site’s reliability and performance over the last few months, one aspect of the site — the Trip Planner — has seen numerous upgrades and an increased level of popularity. Yesterday, the MTA’s efforts paid off when the Center for Digital Government handed out its Best of New York Awards. The Trip Planner took home the gold for “Project Best Advancing Service to the Public.”

The MTA was deservedly proud of this award. “We believe Trip Planner is by far the most accurate travel itinerary provider there is for New York City,” Paul Fleuranges, NYC Transit vice president for corporate communications, said. “This award from the Center for Digital Government is proof that we are providing our customers with quality digital customer service.”

As Trip Planner has improved, traffic has increased correspondingly. According to the MTA, in February, an average weekday saw 6912 trips planned while an average weekend saw 5512 trips planned. Those figures represent a 272 percent and a 287 percent increase, respectively, over the usage numbers from February 2007.

For the next year, the MTA plans to add a station locator, places of interest and address finder features to the application. If I were running it, I’d also look at a way to add staircase location to the directions too. Some of the system’s larger and busier stations have multiple entrances, and it’s handy to know which exit will put you closer to your destination.

Meanwhile, as the MTA deserves some recognition for its Web site, I am eagerly looking ahead to a planned overhaul of the MTA’s site. MTA.info 2.0 will be a welcome addition to the online subway resources.

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AsidesFare HikesMTA Bridges and Tunnels

MTA raises the tolls

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 17, 2008

The final round of the 2008 fare hikes went into effect last approximately 36 hours ago. At 3 a.m. on Sunday morning, the tolls on the MTA-controlled bridges and tunnels around the city went up. NY1 has the details and the MTA has a handy chart detailing the new fares both with and without the E-ZPass discounts. And that’s all she wrote for the fare hikes.

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Abandoned Stations

Inside the Crown Jewel of the old subway system

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on March 17, 2008

Three hundred feet south of the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop on the East Side IRT lies an abandoned subway station. Called “the world’s most beautiful former subway station” by Forgotten NY, this station is the City Hall stop that served as in the inaugural launching point for the city’s subway system in 1904.

The station is ornate with chandeliers and Guastavino arches embellished with green tiling and decorative skylights. The station is also impractical. It’s a one-way local-only stop 300 feet away from a big transfer point that features both local and express IRT service. It’s built around a very sharp curve that makes the gaps at Union Square seem small. The City recognized these shortcomings and shut the station on December 31, 1945.

For fifty years, there it lay empty and unused. Trains on the 6 line would crawl through the darkened loop as they turned from downtown trains into uptown trains, but passengers were urged to dismount at Brooklyn Bridge. In the late 1990s, as the subway’s centennial neared, the MTA wanted to open the old station as an outpost of the Transit Museum. The museum started giving tours, but in 1998, the Giuiliani Administration declared the station a security risk due to its proximity to City Hall.

As the centennial came in 2004, the Transit Museum received permission to reopen the station to tours, and a few months ago, the MTA started allowing customers to ride past it on the 6 train. Every few months, Transit Museum members can take the tour of the Crown Jewel of the subway system. It’s an incredible glimpse back in time, and as the station is unique among all of the rest of the city’s 100-year stations, it’s really something to see up close.

This weekend, I finally took the tour and brought my camera along with me. While the conditions are tough for photography — it’s very poorly lit inside the station — I tried to get as many pictures as I could. You can view the entire set on flickr. But let’s take a closer look at a few shots.

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Service Advisories

It’s one ‘L’ of a weekend

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

There is nothing better than St. Patty’s Day weekend on the subways. Last year, on the way home from celebrating my dad’s birthday, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing people ranging from passed-out drunk to puking drunk trying to cram into a downtown 4 train at 12:30 a.m. I’m sure we’ll see a lovely repeat this weekend.

Meanwhile, the revelers from Williamsburg and points east will have a tough time navigating the subway diversions this weekend. Due to a roadbed replacement, the L train is all over the place. The trains are operating in two sections with no service west of Union Square. Here’s the bad news:

Canarsie line trains will operate in two sections: between Union Square (Manhattan) and Bedford Avenue (Brooklyn) every 16 minutes and between Bedford Avenue (Brooklyn) and Rockaway Parkway (Brooklyn) every 8 minutes (except from 11:25 p.m. Friday to 1 a.m. Saturday when trains will run approximately every 30 minutes). In addition, L trains will skip the 3rd Avenue (Manhattan) station in both directions.

So if you’re heading out that way, good luck.

The rest of the service alerts are here and below:


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, 1 trains skip 28th, 23rd, and 18th Streets in both directions due to underpinning work at Cortlandt Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, there are no 1 trains between 34th Street and South Ferry. Customers may take the 2 or 3 between 34th Street and Chambers Street. Free shuttle buses are available between Chambers Street and South Ferry. These changes are necessary due to underpinning work at Cortlandt Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, 2 and 3 trains run local between 96th Street and Chambers Street due to underpinning work at Cortlandt Street.


From 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March 16, Manhattan-bound 4 trains run express from Bedford Park Blvd. to Burnside Avenue due to cable work between Kingsbridge Road and Burnside Avenue.


From 4 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 10 p.m. Sunday, March 16, Bronx-bound 6 trains run express from Parkchester to Pelham Bay Park due to track panel installation between Parkchester-East 177th Street and Pelham Bay Park. The last stop for some Bronx-bound 6 trains is 3rd Avenue.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, Flushing-bound 7 trains skip 33rd, 40th, 46th, 52nd and 69th Streets due to track work at 69th Street.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, uptown C trains run express from Canal Street to 145th Street due to cable and conduit work between 42nd Street and 59th Street-Columbus Circle.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, uptown D trains run on the A line from West 4th Street to 59th Street due to cable and conduit work between 42nd Street and 59th Street-Columbus Avenue.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, Manhattan-bound E trains skip Van Wyck Blvd. due to ADA work at Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, Manhattan-bound F trains skip Sutphin and Van Wyck Blvds. due to due to ADA work at Kew Gardens- Union Turnpike.

From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, Manhattan-bound F trains run on the V line from Roosevelt Avenue to 47th-50th Streets/Rockefeller Center due to communications equipment installation between 36th Street (Queens) and 47th-50th Sts/Rockefeller Center stations.


From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March 16 (and the following weekend, Mar 22-23), Manhattan-bound J trains skip Flushing Avenue, Lorimer and Hewes Sts. due to rail replacement between Myrtle and Marcy Avenues.


rom 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday, March 17, there are no L trains between 8th Avenue and Union Square due to roadbed replacement between 3rd and Bedford Avenues:

Customers should take the M14 bus instead. The L train will run in two sections:

  • Between Union Square and Bedford Avenue every 16 minutes (bypassing 3rd Avenue in both directions) and
  • Between Bedford Avenue and Rockaway Parkway every 8 minutes, except between the hours of 11:25 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday when trains will run approximately every 30 minutes.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, March 15 to 5 a.m. Monday. March 17, Coney Island-bound N trains run express from 59th Street to Kings Highway due to repair work on the 20th Avenue bridges.


From 11 p.m. Saturday, March 15 to 10 a.m. Sunday, March 16, downtown Q trains run local from 57th Street to Canal Street due to asbestos abatement of the concrete duct south of 42nd Street-Times Square.

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