Second Ave. Sagas

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  • MTA, DOT aim to ease holiday travel

    No one who lives in New York really loves the holiday time around here. Sure, the idea of holiday spirit is nice, and the family gatherings that mark Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s are generally fun and painless. But the tourists. They’re worse than the pigeons.

    But that’s the price we pay in New York. With all of the great things the city has to offer come outsiders in their oversized SUVs clogging up our roads every holiday season. Traveling around New York from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is nearly impossible, and this year, the Department of Transportation and the MTA have unleashed a plan to combat crushing holiday congestion. The details, couresty of Metro’s Patrick Arden:

    To make room for crowds attending the Thanksgiving Day Parade, NYC Transit will increase service on the 1 and the 42nd Street Shuttle. Trains will also be added to the E, F, Q, 1, 3, 4 and 6 lines on weekends between Dec. 8 and 23. Weekend subway construction will also be cut back.

    Now through Jan. 2, non-emergency construction work on streets and sidewalks will be restricted to between midnight and 6 a.m. at 179 locations across the five boroughs. “You’ll find that more than half of current construction work will be curtailed,” said Michael Primeggia, deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Transportation.

    While the information from the MTA is limited right now, this is fantastic news for would-be straphangers. I have to imagine that these holiday travel plans will include regular express service on the West Side IRT lines following Thanksgiving. More trains and better service means we all win. So the tourists can stick to the roads. Those of us in the know can head underground.

    As an added bonus — or a torturously brief sneak peak, depending on your point of view — New York City Transit President Howard Roberts dropped in some good news for railfans: Vintage subway cars and buses will run on some lines during December Sundays. I’ll of course have the details when the MTA releases the specifics of this plan, but you can bet that avid subway hunters will turn out in droves for glimpses at these old cars.

    Better service and nostalgia train cars: Think of it as a holiday present from the MTA to New Yorkers.

    Those love ornaments up there can be yours from the Transit Museum store.

  • Port Authority announces toll increase

    The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operators of the Hudson River crossings and the PATH trains, has announced a plan to increase fares and tolls. PATH train fares will go up $.30 to $.50, and tolls will climb to $8. PANYNJ also plans to eliminate E-ZPass discounts during peak travel hours. [New York Times]

  • Three MTA officials too busy for fare hike meetings

    mtaabsentees.jpg Earlier today, I wrote about the low attendance among MTA board members at the fare hike hearings. The problem, it seems, is worse than I thought.

    According to a report in The Daily News, three MTA board members – Andrew Saul, Donald Cecil and Susan Metzger (showed above in that order) – skipped every single fare hike hearing. Nancy Shevell showed to only one hearing after her tryst with Paul McCartney became public knowledge.

    “Membership on the MTA board is a privilege, not a right, with awesome responsibilities,” State Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) said to reporter Pete Donohue. “Members who can’t drag themselves to even one fare hike hearing to face the riding public not only shouldn’t be allowed to vote for a fare hike, they shouldn’t be on the board at all.”

    This story is part of The Daily News’ ongoing Halt the Hike, a blending of editorial content and news reporting. While one could question the journalistic ethics behind such a blurring of the traditional lines of objectivity in news reporting, The Daily News is spot on in this case, and their companion editorial nails the issue:

    Why should they care about the cost of transportation? MTA board members get lifetime free MetroCards, lifetime free Metro-North and LIRR train passes and lifetime free E-ZPass accounts. For themselves and for their spouses or paramours.

    Let the cry go up from the streets: Revoke their privileges! And kick them off the board!

    Since they obviously have no interest in the riders and no interest in the scores of lawmakers who are urging the MTA to delay the fare hike, these three do not belong on the panel. Board Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger should ask for their resignations and for replacement members before any vote on the hikes.

    If the MTA board members aren’t going to at least pretend that they’re listening to the public, they have no business serving on the board. And that’s all there is to say.

  • In NYC, officials skip the fare hike hearings, but in DC, no riders show up

    So the MTA’s fare hike hearings are suffering from something of a PR backlash. As I noted on Monday, MTA board members — those very same board members who don’t ride the subways but have to vote for the fare hike next month — haven’t bothered to show up to the hearings. That’s certainly the way to win over a very skeptical public.

    In fact, the non-attendance has gotten so out of hand that one legislator is proposing stripping absentee board members of their votes. Rory Lancman, a Democratic Assembly representative from Queens, has written a bill that would bar board members from voting on the fare hike if they haven’t attended at least 50 percent of the hearings. Lancman, an avid opponent of the congestion fee, raises a valid point, but right now, it’s too little too late.

    Meanwhile, down in the our Nation’s Capital, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is going through its very own fare hike motions. The WMATA, despite double-digit ridership growth over the last five years, claims they need a fare hike in order to maintain their current levels of service. In fact, as I noted in August, the WMATA is already threatening to cut DC’s already-pathetic late-night subway service if they don’t get the fare hike. Aw, how cute. They’re resorting to the same threats as the MTA. They want to be just like us.

    In fact, they’ve even gone so far as to schedule a series of meetings in Virginia, Maryland and the District so that riders can give feedback on the fare hike proposals. Now, while our fare hike hearings suffer from a noted lack of officials, DC’s hearings have another problem: Only four people showed up to the first one yesterday.

    As Lena H. Sun in the Washington Post reported, this poor turnout was probably related to the location chosen for the fare hike. The WMATA picked a conference center in Reston, VA, a DC suburb that is Metro-accessible. The conference center, however, is not at all accessible. Here’s how the WMATA’s Website recommends you get there:

    By Metrorail: Orange Line to the West Falls Church station, transfer to the Fairfax Connector Bus 505 or 950 to the Reston Town Center Transit Station where a free shuttle bus will leave at 6 and 6:30 p.m. to the public hearing. Fairfax Connector will provide free shuttle bus service from the public hearing to the Reston Town Center Transit Station.

    Got that? Take the train to a bus to a free shuttle bus to a public hearing. I don’t think the WMATA has set up enough hoops through which it expects the public to leap. For her part, WMATA board member Catherine Hudgins said it was “possible” that the location may have contributed to the poor turnout. Ya think?

    So as New York and the MTA go through a few growing pains on the long and torturous path to a seemingly-inevitable fare hike, at least the MTA has picked places that are rider-friendly. No one shows up to listen to the complaints, but in New York, the people are out in force. In Washington, where the WMATA is involved, it’s a whole different beast all together.

  • Hell hath no fury like a Staten Islander scorned

    I warned ’em but to no avail. Yesterday, the MTA board members — or at least those who decided to show up — had to face a room full of pissed off Staten Islanders, and based on reports in the Staten Island Advance and on NY1, it was not a pretty scene.

    At the last of the fare hike hearings before this weekend’s big Public Engagement Workshop, the touring fare hike circus journeyed to that hard-to-reach Staten Island to discuss transit options with a bunch of disgruntled Staten Island residents. As NY1’s Amanda Farinacci relates, things started out bad and only got worse.

    To highlight the transit problems facing Staten Island, State Senator Diane Savino leveled an indictment of the MTA’s designated start time for the hearing. “There is a hearing held here at 6 p.m., and if they lived in any other borough, the vast majority of people would be able to get here,” she said. “But most Staten Islanders are still on their way home.”

    Maura Yates, of Staten Island’s hometown newspaper, had more of the gruesome details:

    The officials about to vote on a proposed fare and toll hike probably haven’t experienced the hell of standing up for hours on a stifling express bus with no bathroom, day in and day out. So several furious Staten Islanders who took the microphone during the public hearing that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority conducted last night at the Petrides Educational Complex in Sunnyside challenged them to do just that.

    And at least two MTA officials said they’d be willing to make the trip. “I know the pain, I feel it,” said Todt Hill resident Frank Powers, who is Staten Island’s representative on the board. He said he experiences the traffic firsthand driving home from MTA headquarters in Midtown. “It’s not a question that none of us know it,” he said. “We do know it.”

    He said, he’d be willing to board an express bus “at 57th Street at 5 o’clock, if that’s what it takes.” Hilary Ring, the MTA’s director of government affairs, said he would come, too.

    I’m not sure that’s what it takes, Frank. For one day, you, one of three privileged MTA board members who openly admitted to shunning public transit during rush hour commuets, will experience the joys of a two-hour bus ride from home to work. And then you’ll go back to your car. I’m sure that’ll convince Powers to vote against the fare hike.

    Meanwhile, Staten Islanders annoyed at constant Verrazano Bridge construction and few other transit options for escaping the Island even challenged the MTA on their bathroom breaks. Yates relates the tale of one Joseph Mizrahi who noted that one of the board members had left for a bathroom break one hour into the hearing. “Think of the people who don’t have that luxury” while trapped on buses for two hours or more each afternoon, he said. “Who are you to judge fare increases on something you can’t even relate to?”

    With the end of this bitter hearing, the only public forum standing between the MTA board and the fare hike vote is Saturday’s workshop. This is it, folks. If we want to further drive home the point that no one wants the fare hike, show up to this hearing. But be prepared to present alternatives. How can the MTA fund its debt service and expansion plans without a fare hike? If we can’t answer these questions, we’ll have to face the reality of a fare hike, and the MTA will have to face a very bitter ridership.

  • A subway tunnel to Staten Island, 80 years in the making

    img_36216.jpg

    The only New York City Transit rail line on which I’ve never ridden. (Photo by Chris Slaight / NYCSubway.org)

    Yesterday’s discussion of Staten Island got me thinking more about the city’s forgotten borough. Did you know, for instance, that Staten Island nearly seceded from New York City in the early 1990s?

    But civil politics are neither here nor there. We here to discuss the subway, and so we shall look at what one City Council member from Brooklyn is proposing: a subway tunnel from Brooklyn to Staten Island.

    Say what? The MTA is already working on a rather lengthy tunnel down Second Ave. and a planned expansion westward of the 7 line. No way can they find the resources to build another massive project. Well, Lew Fidler thinks that for the environmental sake of the city, we should consider his plan. The Brooklyn Paper reports:

    Here’s an idea whose time has come — again: How about a subway to Staten Island?…

    In addition to a transit tunnel, Fidler supported a cross-Harbor freight tunnel and burying the BQE to open up the Sunset Park waterfront to parkland and economic development — both dreams of transit wonks. To pay for it, Fidler would levy a one-third-of-one-percent tax on all employer payrolls in the tri-state region.

    “Congestion is a regional problem and requires a regional solution,” he told The Brooklyn Paper. “In order to get off Staten Island, residents have to use one fossil-fueled vehicle or another — car or bus. It’s ridiculous that the fastest-growing borough has no access to the rest of the city.”

    In reality, Fidler’s proposal is a red herring, designed to stir up opposition to the congestion fee plan. But his statement, as far-fetched as it may be, brings us back to an era before anyone under the age of 75 was alive and kicking.

    Back in the early decades of the Twentieth Century during post-Great War boom times for the City, the operators of the subway — the BRT company — wanted to build a rapid transit tunnel from Brooklyn to Staten Island. I’ll delve into the back story soon; the history told through articles in The New York Times is fascinating to any student of history of the New York City subways. But the short version is here.

    The BRT started building the tunnel but entered bankruptcy in the mid-1920s. The city bailed out the subways but wanted no part in the tunnel construction to the then-isolated and very rural Staten Island. The tunnel — extended about 150 feet out in the harbor — has laid dormant under Owl’s Head Park ever since.

    This tunnel surely would be a boon to Staten Island. But it’s not happening now, and it probably won’t happen ever. But we can all dream even our motives, like Fidler’s, are less than pure.

  • MTA board members skipping fare hike hearings

    According to a report in the Daily News, MTA board members tasked with voting on the fare hike aren’t even bothering to show up to the public hearings. Six of the 16 voting members attended the Brooklyn meeting last week, and no more than five have attended any other meeting. Only three MTA members have been to all of the hearings, and the one member who has announced his public support for the fare hike – Andrew Saul – hasn’t been to any of the hearings. [Daily News]

  • Beware the wrath of the neglected Staten Island

    Ask any Staten Islander how the rest of New York City views the oft-forgotten borough, and more often than not, the answer is last and least. The MTA, according to residents of the Island, is no exception.

    One week after the traveling fare hike hearing circus hit the road and made its way through the City’s four other boroughs, Staten Island is getting its day in the sun on Tuesday. And despite recent announcements of expanded service along the Staten Island Railroad, the Island’s residents are not happy, to say the least.

    Over the weekend, The Daily News noted that Staten Island residents are more than annoyed with the MTA. Because of ongoing construction on the Verrazano Bridge, residents are dealing with constant traffic and extra-long commutes. As it is, Staten Island has no underground connection to the rest of New York City, and residents are feeling more neglected than usual. People who live in New Jersey and Long Island get home sooner is a popular and not inaccurate refrain among Staten Islanders.

    While Pete Donohue’s piece in The News scratched the surface of the Staten Island problem, two recent editorials in the Staten Island Advance show the underlying animosity between Staten Island residents and the MTA. The first dealt with the expanded SIR service. In it, the Advance notes that MTA CEO and Executive Director Elliot Sander is the first MTA head to show any interest in Staten Island in a long time. The second is more critical:

    Maybe it’s just coincidence that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority scheduled Staten Island last in its series of required public hearings on the proposed fare and toll increases. You probably won’t persuade many Staten Island commuters of that, however. They’re used to this borough’s transportation needs being at the bottom of the MTA’s list of priorities.

    The first five hearings took place last week around the city and the region. The hearing here will take place Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. at the Michael J. Petrides Educational Complex, Building C. Maybe it’s a coincidence, too, that the hearing is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. That’s a time of the evening when home is still an hour or more away for many commuters who live here.

    The early start time leads to the suspicion that the MTA really doesn’t want to hear what Staten Islanders think about the fare and toll hikes. As a matter of fact, if the past is any indication, a handful of second-tier MTA officials will show up at the hearing, listen with barely concealed boredom to riders’ complaints about fares and service, then leave promptly at a pre-designated time before everyone’s had a chance to be heard.

    Yikes. Talk about a vendetta.

    For Staten Islanders, though, this is a legitimate problem. The only road connecting their island to the rest of the city is a bridge to Bay Ridge. Otherwise, a railway and ferry provide access to Manhattan, but commute times can be painfully long.

    Over on Subchat, a few good contributors are engaged in a long dialogue concerning the subway and Staten Island. One contributor suggested looking into extending the 1 train or the Second Ave. Subway to Staten Island, but that’s a multi-billion-dollar project that wouldn’t see the light of day for decades. In the meantime, express bus service may be the Island’s last good hope.

    No matter the solution, when the fare hike hearing arrives on Tuesday, the MTA will face some bitter Staten Island residents. Bitter over the fare hike, bitter over the poor transportation options, bitter over ongoing bridge construction, these New Yorkers may just put up the strongest fight yet against the MTA’s fare hike proposal. That is, if the transit officials don’t talk everyone to sleep in the first 45 minutes of the meeting.

  • With three new grades, MTA finally breaks the C slump

    The MTA went a little grade-crazy today, releasing three Rider Report Cards today with the 42nd St. Shuttle and the 2 and 3 trains getting graded. For the West Side IRT express trains, it was more of the same. The 2 landed a C and the 3 a C-minus. The shuttle, however, reached the Holy Grail of the B-minus. After 10 grades in the C-range or lower, the Shuttle is the first one to achieve a B.

    These lines are all very popular and often quite crowded. The 2 runs from Wakefield-241st St. in the Bronx down through Manhattan via the 7th Ave. line and into Brooklyn, terminating at Flatbush Ave. The 3 runs from 148th St. in the Bronx down the same line as the 2 and into Brooklyn, terminating at New Lots Ave. The shuttle spends its days running from Grand Central to Times Square.

    As with a few of the other lines, I’m a bit stumped by the train announcements. The 2 got a C-minus for train announcements that are easy to hear. All of the 2 trains are the new R142s with the automatic announcements. If riders can’t hear those announcements, I’m inclined to believe that their ears — and not the trains — are at fault.

    Meanwhile, I’m a veteran of all of these train lines. I grew up near the 96th St. express stop and now live near the Grand Army Plaza stop. These trains are often way too crowded, and the constant weekend service changes in Manhattan are driving its riders more than a little crazy.

    The shuttle’s report card, on the other hand, is a mess of inconsistencies. Riders complain that the shuttle suffers from too few trains at rush hour, but the MTA can’t really add any more trains on the shuttle. There are only three tracks, and during rush hour, they generally operate at capacity.

    From a survey standpoint, the report card numbers are in line what what we’ve been seeing: 5,124 riders graded the 2; 2,373 riders graded the 3; and only 380 riders graded the Shuttle. Below are the top 10 areas of improvement on each line. The complete grades are after the jump.

    1. Adequate room on board at rush hour
    2. Reasonable wait times for trains
    3. Cleanliness of stations
    4. Station announcements that are easy to hear
    5. Minimal delays during trips
    6. Train announcements that are easy to hear
    7. Comfortable temperature of subway cars
    8. Sense of security on trains
    9. Station announcements that are informative
    10. Sense of security in stations

    1. Reasonable wait times for trains
    2. Minimal delays during trips
    3. Adequate room on board at rush hour
    4. Station announcements that are easy to hear
    5. Train announcements that are easy to hear
    6. Cleanliness of stations
    7. Sense of security on trains
    8. Sense of security in stations
    9. Cleanliness of subway cars
    10. Comfortable temperature of subway cars

    1. Reasonable wait times for trains
    2. Adequate room on board at rush hour
    3. Minimal delays during trips
    4. Train announcements that are easy to hear
    5. Station announcements that are easy to hear
    6. Sense of security in stations
    7. Sense of security on trains
    8. Cleanliness of stations
    9. Station announcements that are informative
    10. Comfortable temperature of subway cars

    Click here for full grades.

  • At least the Staten Island Railway isn’t delayed this weekend

    Poor Staten Island. The forgotten bastard borough of New York City — as its residents would prefer it to be — we often forget that Staten Island has its very own railway. In fact, the SIR doesn’t have a board on the Facebook Subway Status app while the Roosevelt Island Tram does.

    It’s an odd little system, running from the ferry terminal to the southern tip of the island, and you only have to pay at the ferry terminal. But, hey, people use it, and the big news out of Staten Island this week is that the MTA is expanding express service during the morning and evening rush hours.

    Basically, the MTA is expanding rush hour service by an hour and twenty minutes and five trains in the evening and by 45 minutes and three additional trains in the morning. The MTA is able to provide these service upgrades because they invested $100 million into a signal-modernization plan completed in mid-2005. Maybe all of those service alerts — which you can view after the jump — will actually pay off in the long run. Either way, it’s a disaster out there. I picked a good week to get out of the city.

    I’m sure there was a new Rider Report Card released this week, but I’m out of town today. I wrote this post on Thursday night and will cover the report card on Monday. Keep reading for the service alerts.

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