I have a soft spot for the New York City condoms. One of my first posts back in January of 2007 tied together subway lines with themed condoms and helped propel me to Internet stardom. It is with a heavy heart that I post the news then that New York City has redesigned their themed condoms, and the wrapping is no longer evocative of the MTA’s subway bullets. Free condoms with the new packaging are available throughout the city today. [City Room]
NYCT to inspect 467 platform edges
Stand clear of platform edge. It’s more than just a good idea.
One down — literally; 467 more to go.
In the wake of the public outcry over the collapsing platform at Kings Highway, MTA New York City Transit President Howard Roberts ordered a complete inspection of every station platform in the New York City subway system. The review will begin today.
Teams comprising MTA workers from the System Safety, Maintenance of Way Engineering and Stations division will assemble to look for loose, damaged and missing pieces of the rubber or wooden boards in place on the platform edges. These bumpers act just like those on an automobile: They line platforms to prevent subway cars from coming into direct contact with and being damaged by platform edges.
Paul Fleuranges, vice president of corporate communications at NYCT, stressed the agency’s attention to safety. “If a platform edge rubbing board is found to be in disrepair, it is replaced. It’s that simple,” he said. “As a matter of fact, in 2007 our Station Maintenance Division replaced 9,599 linear feet of rubbing board along platform edges systemwide. Clearly it is an issue we take very seriously.”
Meanwhile, MTA officials continue to stress the dangers of getting too close to that platform edge. Besides the rare collapse — this is the first in recent memory — passengers too close to the edge run the risk of falling or getting brushed back by a train.
Personally, I paid more attention to the platform edge today and straphangers’ behavior around the edge. I noticed that for Avi Katz to fall in a platform collapse, he had to be very close to the edge. In fact, it was hard for me to even get that close to the edge, and I didn’t need to stand that close to the edge to peer down the tunnel in search of an oncoming train.
Ah, yes, the oncoming trains. That brings me to another point: Standing too close to the platform edge is an ingrained New York City Subway tradition. Much like people don’t “stand clear of the closing doors,” people don’t stand back from the platform edge, and they won’t for a long time — here’s the “unless” — unless the MTA gets around to installing those LCD screens that display when the next train is arriving.
Passengers stand too close to the edge because, for some reason, they just have to know where the train is. They have to be the first to see the approaching lights, and they have to believe that staring into dark tunnels makes the train come sooner. Putting up signs that say when the next train is coming would make people step back from the edge. They could relax far from the dangers of the rubber padding that, unbeknownst to most riders, overhangs nothing. While the ADA stripes are part of the physical platform, the last few inches of rubber are just hanging over the tracks.
But before those technologies arrive, stand clear of the platform edge. The MTA has plans to renovate many of those stations along the Q that have been the focus of the news stories this week, but until then, the train will arrive when it arrives, and no amount of peering into the tunnels can change that.
NYCT Trip Planner goes visual with Virtual Earth maps
For all the grief I give the MTA and New York City Transit for their in-system technology problems, the agency has made a real effort to improve their digital presence since the August flood knocked out its Website. Yesterday, New York City Transit unveiled a series of improvements to its Trip Planner designed to further aid travelers get from point to point.
The improvements center around mapping technology which now puts the Trip Planner in direct competition with the onNYTurf Subway map and the Gypsy Maps trip planner. The new version of the Trip Planner uses NAVTEQ map data and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth technology to bring riders something of a visual version of their planned trip.
“By utilizing NAVTEQ map data and imagery from Microsoft, we are in a position to provide Trip Planner users with a more realistic street grid view and help them better visualize the walking instructions that accompany their travel itinerary,” Paul Fleuranges, NYC Transit Vice President of Corporate Communications, said.
The maps are integrated into the interface following the landing page. A user submits beginning and end points into the Trip Planner, and the Custom Planner page returns a travel itinerary with links to the maps. The map view features the option to view 3D representations of the city or the more traditional overhead view. At certain zoom levels, the subway lines are visible.
With these improvements, the NYCT Trip Planner leapfrogs over the other two competitors with a few caveats. Relying on scheduling data, the Trip Planner appears to be aiming for a greater degree of accuracy. We all know however that MTA schedules, particularly within the borough of Manhattan, are often not accurate.
Furthermore, the interface allows users to view the maps only on one end of the planned trip. A user cannot view walking directions from the starting point to the station and from the destination station to the end point at the same time. Rather, one must view one set of walking directions, navigate back to the itinerary and click the map link for the second set of directions.
Considering the utility of the Trip Planner, however, this is a small complaint. No other map out there yet integrates service advisories and scheduling as well as this one.
With the Trip Planner now offering mapping information and a mobile version, over 6100 riders a month are relying on the MTA’s site for directions. That represents real progress for a much-maligned aspect of the MTA’s technology.
When the platforms come tumblin’ down
The platform at 7th Ave. on the Brighton line has seen better days. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
When the MTA warns you to stand back from the platform edge, it’s usually because the agency doesn’t want its passengers struck by oncoming trains. But an accident at Kings Highway gives a whole new meaning to that familiar phrase.
At the end of January, 14-year-old Avi Katz stepped to the platform edge to check for a Q train. The wooden planks gave way, and Katz fell onto the tracks. He narrowly avoided getting hit by a train. GerritsenBeach.net has the details:
Katz had been at the station around 6PM on January 29 and, per WABC 7, “stepped onto the edge of the platform to see if his train was coming.” The platform, made of wood, cracked and Katz fell three feet into the tracks. Katz, accompanied by his mother and Assemblyman Dov Hikind, spoke at a press conference, “I was laying on the tracks and I was really scared. My yarmulke fell off and I didn’t even care. I saw the train coming and all I could think was, ‘Get up, get up – this isn’t how I want to die.’”
Katz said it was hard for him to get up and after three attempts, he managed to get back to the platform. Though the MTA did patch up the platform, Hikind questioned the MTA’s commitment to maintenance; pointing to the decrepit conditions (per WCBS 2, “crumbling concrete, rotted wood, and burned-out lightbulbs”), he asked, “This is our transit system that we spend billions and billions of dollars for it to look like this, at one of the busiest transit stations?”
For many of us, Katz’s tale is a horror story that hits a little bit too close to home. I know I’m guilty of waiting close to the platform edge, peering into the tunnel trying to spy the approaching lights of an oncoming train. To me, Katz’s story is something of a wake-up call.
After reading about Katz’s ordeal yesterday, I inspected my own subway stop — the 7th Ave. station on the B/Q. I snapped the picture above on the Manhattan-bound platform, and it truly is an alarming photo. The wooden planks at the edge of the platform, that last barrier between passenger and track, are in a sorry state. The paint is mostly yellow, but the boards are rotting away. In many places, entire chunks have long since fallen off.
Hikind got it right at the press conference. What is the MTA doing to insure a secure infrastructure for the city’s aging subway system? We know they’re painting just 12 stations a year with another handful scheduled for complete renovations each budget cycle. But the system needs more than that. This example at 7th Ave. — a heavily trafficked station — is just one of many throughout the system. From midtown to Midwood and Inwood, the subway stations are falling apart. Katz escaped disaster, and the MTA can’t afford wait for a tragedy to befall the next person to suffer from a collapsing platform before repairing its stations.
Buses handle snow with grace and aplomb
In the midst of the first snow storm this winter, an anonymous transit rider writes in to Second Ave. Sagas:
Did you notice the performance of MTA buses during today’s snowstorm? It was an embarrassment. The relatively new flexible buses had chains on the rear tires, but the fronts of the buses aren’t heavy enough to get traction on the snow, so they jackknife very easily. On 3rd avenue between 91st and 92nd, four buses got stuck in the snow for over two hours, blocking the entire avenue to uptown traffic for two hours.
You’d think the MTA would be better prepared to cope with a few inches of snow.
Anyone surprised?
Why dogs should be leashed on the subway
A D train at the tail end of rush hour was delayed this morning when a dog got loose in one of the subway cars. That would annoy me to no end, and I can’t imagine that these good folks would have been too amused either. Lease your dogs in the subway. [City Room]
The remaking of Pelham One Two Three hits the tunnels
Via the AMNY Subway Tracker blog comes news that film crews for the upcoming Tony Scott remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three are scouting for locations. The crews, according to transit officials, stopped by the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station yesterday, probably to inspect the abandoned outer platforms that have long been used as movie sets. They may do some tests in the Bronx as well. The remake, starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta, promises to defile the memory of one of the classic New York City movies. [AMNY Subway Tracker Blog]
Downtown residents want Fulton St. hub
Yup. There’s that dome again. (Source: MTA Capital Construction)
Add Lower Manhattan residents to that ever-growing list of New Yorkers annoyed at the plans to overhaul the Fulton St. Transit Hub. They join the displaced merchants as everyone tries to finger the MTA for this misguided plan’s shortcomings.
On Monday night, residents of Community Board 1 gathered with MTA officials to discuss the fate of the hub. While my suggestion of simply sticking a ladder into a hole in the ground probably wasn’t among the top choices, CB1 members urged the MTA to stick with their original plans. Amy Zimmer of Metro New York has more:
Bill Wheeler, the MTA’s director of planning, asked CB1 members last night what they wanted to salvage from the original plans. The answer was: the original plans.
“It would be utterly unconscionable to not build this project in a timely manner after 145 Downtown businesses were sacrificed to assemble the site and the entire population of Lower Manhattan has been forced to navigate around and through this massive dirty construction for years,” CB1 wrote in a resolution.
With billions going to the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access, why couldn’t the MTA find the money for Fulton Street, Goodkind asked. “We want the MTA to deliver,” Goodkind said.
Herein lies the rub: The MTA is spending its capital construction money on the Second Ave. Subway and the East Side Access project. The Feds were supposed to supply the money for the Fulton St. transit hub from the Lower Manhattan 9/11 recovery fund, and they budgeted $750 million for the project. When the costs starting coming in at a level significantly higher than that, the MTA couldn’t cover the overruns without sacrificing other projects.
And why should they? Much like the City did with the 7 line extension, the Feds were supposed to pick up the budget for the hub. Yet again, the MTA did not come to an agreement on cost overruns that fit the agency budget, and they’re left saddled with a $750-million hole in the ground and no hub plans.
At some point soon, the MTA will have to unveil plans for the area because business owners and residents will demand it. Some have suggested a private/public partnership, and if that’s what it takes to get this oft-delayed and expensive hub off the ground, so be it.
Second Ave. businesses suffer
A sympathy piece in this week’s New York Magazine details how businesses along the Second Ave. Subway construction zone are suffering. It’s tale we’ve heard before, and while I’m sympathetic to the plight of these business owners and encourage the MTA to fairly compensate them, I can’t oppose one project that stands to benefits hundreds of thousands of people because of a little inconvenience now. [New York Magazine]
What do we get out of this? What do we — the 2.3 billion of us who ride the subways — get out of this upcoming fare hike?
That’s the question, isn’t it? Somehow, it’s a lot easier to swallow a fare hike when the increased cost to ride returns some tangible benefits. In December, right before the holidays, the MTA announced a $46-million plan to upgrade service provided that the agency’s finances held steady. In other words, if the tax revenue came in as projected and the fare hike met financial expectations, riders would see some much-needed service upgrades.
Well, good news. With less than a month to go before the new fares go into effect, the MTA is believed to have the funds to ensure their plan. Pete Donohue and the Daily News had more:
It looks like the MTA will be able to afford a $46 million program to upgrade subway and bus service across the city, including more frequent trains on some lines and new bus routes for growing neighborhoods.
The program was adopted last year when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved fare hikes, but officials were unsure if there would be enough money to carry it out. So far, the MTA’s tax revenues are sufficient for transit officials to approve the Service Enhancement Program in a month or so, according to experts and sources.
According to Donohue, since approving the fare hike, the MTA has drawn in an additional $23 million in tax revenues, and their 2008 taxes are right on target.
Putting aside the fact that the MTA has again seemingly discovered more money in their coffers after approving a fare hike, what can the riders expect? Well, riders on the 1, 4 and 6 lines should see decreased wait times during the evening. The B and W trains will run until 11 p.m. instead of 9:30 p.m., and the G train will head to Church Ave. in Brooklyn. The R will run to Queens at all times, and the 3 will become a 24-hour train as well. Increased bus service will shuttle New Yorkers from Red Hook to Manhattan via the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.
There’s no word yet on when these changes will take place, but it’s good news with the fare hikes looming just three weeks away.
The old Transit Authority logo courtesy of flickr user AllWaysNY.