Fare HikesMTA Economics

Tax revenue could stave off ‘08 fare hike

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 27, 2007

Just the other day, I took the MTA’s new CFO to task for his gloom-and-doom scenario involving the MTA’s financial picture and tax revenue. Well, today, I have better news: Because of the increase in taxes collected by the MTA, the planned 2008 fare increase may be off the table.

With the MTA collecting over $184 million more than planned, The Daily News speculates that this surplus could cover the gap that the fare increase was supposed to meet. Pete Donohue has more:

Since January, key real estate taxes have generated nearly $600 million for the MTA – $184 million more than anticipated.

If that pace continues, those taxes would fill the $800 million gap the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had projected for 2008.

“God bless the housing market,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said. “It helped generate a $1 billion surplus in 2006 and, hopefully, it will hold off a fare hike in 2008.”

(By the way, I’m going to count up how many MTA articles appear in the New York press and in how many of those Gene Russianoff appears. My guess is upwards of 90 percent.)

So that’s good news. The MTA, with some massive projects on tap, is facing a better-than-expected financial picture. Of course, the MTA officials aren’t quite as quick to celebrate, and I don’t blame them. The last thing they want to do is say the fare increase is off the table and then watch as the real estate market tanks in August. In fact, an MTA spokesman said exactly that.

“Revenues from real estate taxes are extremely volatile and it’s too early in the year to know where revenues will end up,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said. “We will not consider a fare increase until we have exhausted all other options.”

The final decision on a fare increase will come in December. Hopefully, the real estate market will stay healthy and robust until then. I wouldn’t mind sticking with my $76 monthly Metrocard. Enough of my hard-earned money goes to the monthly card as it is.

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Metro-NorthMTA Economics

Yankees’ Metro-North station bid going nowhere fast

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 26, 2007

newyankeestadium.jpg

A new Yankee Stadium is slowly, and sadly, rising out of the remains of the Macombs Dam Park. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)

On a visit to Yankee Stadium this year, it’s impossible to miss the construction of the new stadium across the street from the old one. Crew members are on site during day games, and the new stadium, set for an April 2009 debut, is slowly taking shape. The same cannot be said for the plans for a state-of-the-art Metro-North hub in the South Bronx that is supposed to serve this new stadium.

A month ago, I noted that this transportation hub was, like most MTA projects, already well over budget before construction even began. Now the news is worse. According to documents released earlier this week by the MTA, the first contract for this new station should have been awarded already, but as Metro New York’s transit beat writer Patrick Arden noted on Tuesday, no contract is in sight and plans for the station are in jeopardy.

Progress has been delayed by the need to develop “an overall project budget,” wrote engineering consultant Carter Burgess. The $45 million cost is rumored to have nearly doubled over the last year. “In addition, an agreement with the City of New York regarding the project’s maintenance and shared construction cost is also being finalized.”

“We’re still waiting for the city to acquire the land,” explained MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin. “There hasn’t been any final budget put out, or an expected date for work to begin. When the land is acquired, we’ll have more to say.”

Similar to the problems surrounding the 7 line extension, the City and the MTA are at odds over just who is supposed to be paying for all of this. What originally began as a gesture of good will to the City’s leading environmental and public transportation advocates who wanted a transportation hub instead of four parking lots with a capacity of a measly 5,000 cars has devolved into another political fight over money between two powerful bodies.

Has anyone thought to ask the Yankees, recently valued as a franchise at $1.2 billion, to pitch in? Well, according to Straphanger Campaign guru, the omnipresent Gene Russianoff, the Yankees are mysteriously missing from this story. “The MTA is tapped out — its core program is in jeopardy,” Russianoff said to Arden. “So what’s more important? Paying to make the Yankees happy, or asking them to participate? I think it jeopardizes the project.”

I hear ya, Gene, and I couldn’t agree more. In fact, why not ask A-Rod to pitch in? After all, he makes $40 million in a season and a half. I’m sure he could contribute something for the good of the project other than record-setting home runs. Share, Alex, share!

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MTA AbsurdityMTA Economics

New MTA moneyman wonders ‘What if?’

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 25, 2007

monopolymoney.jpg The MTA is notorious terrible with money. Maybe they don’t have enough and need to raise the fare. But, oh wait, an accounting error reveals the Authority had more than it thought. Maybe this project will come in under budget; maybe not.

Yesterday, the MTA’s new CFO got in on the act, discussing finances and the dangers of relying on property tax. Gary Dellaverson, the former head of labor negotiations, spoke at length about the MTA and its tenuous (or not) funding situation. Metro’s Patrick Arden has more:

The booming real estate market has resulted in large surpluses at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, defying the agency’s attempts to make predictions. Yesterday the MTA announced real estate taxes brought in $185 million more than anticipated. But former labor negotiator Gary Dellaverson warned the good times can’t last forever, as he stepped into his new role of chief financial officer.

In what he called “a pure ‘what if’ exercise,” Dellaverson showed a series of graphs charting the amounts the MTA has been raking in from real estate transactions. Taxes tripled from 1983 to ’87. “The sad part of that story is from ’87 to ’91 those taxes coming to the MTA lost 65 percent of their value,” Dellaverson said, noting a “pretty obvious bell curve” before wondering “what happens if that type of a phenomenon — that trough to peak, peak to trough — takes place again.”

So we’ve got some typical MTA financial shenanigans at work here. Dellaverson, in his first role as CFO, announces that he will be presiding over an organization that just received an unexpected $185 million surplus. For that kind of money, they could sign Derek Jeter.

But — and this is a big “but” — Dellaverson had to do something to make sure that the MTA, which has long pled poverty and is relying on large federal contributions for its pressing capital construction projects, didn’t look too financially solvent. So hey, maybe the property tax bubble will burst again, and the MTA will lose $500 million in projected revenues by 2011. Right, guys? Guys? You with me? Anyone?

Mark Page, an MTA board member and head of the Office of Management and Budget, was not fooled by this worst-case scenario act. He noted that Dellaverson’s models, seemingly pulled out of thin air, are not too be considered reliable. “Almost without exception those forecasts turn out to be wrong,” he said. That is one resounding vote of confidence for the new Chief Financial Officer.

And Gene Russianoff, whose presence in every subway-related article is actually written into the Charter, Administrative Code and Rules of the City of New York, questioned the reality of the projected $800 million budget deficit set forth by the MTA this year. I’m with you, Gene. I bet the MTA has more money than we’re led to believe here. But hey, real estate bubble? Tax breaks? Lower revenue? Godzilla? Anyone?

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MTA AbsurdityMTA Economics

MTA doesn’t trust its system for ‘important’ trips

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 24, 2007

The MTA doesn’t want its workers waiting and waiting and waiting for the train that never shows up. (Courtesy of flickr user Vincenzo F)

Sometimes, the stories about the MTA are so ridiculous, they write themselves. This story — one in which the MTA doesn’t even trust its own service — is one of those.

You see, the MTA doesn’t want its employees late for important events like random drug tests. So instead of having them use the subway for free, the Transit Authority sinks hundreds of thousands of dollars into, get this, taxi rides for its transit employees. Head, meet brick wall.

The Post’s Jeremy Olshan, transit reporter extraordinaire, broke this story today. Olshan reports:

When the MTA wants to guarantee its employees get to their destination, they skip the bus and subway and call a taxi. Rather than take a free ride on the largest public transportation network in the nation, the thousands of transit workers called for random drug tests are required to take a car service.

This week, the MTA board is set to approve $285,000 in contracts with four city car services to provide the transportation.

So there you go, folks, straight from the mouths of the MTA Board members: Take a cab if you want to get anywhere quickly. I bet Mayor Bloomberg isn’t too thrilled with this news coming out after his PLANYC2030 announcement that was designed to prop up public transportation in New York City.

The MTA acted quickly to defend its policy. The Authority noted that some bus depots are so far away from the testing facility at 180 Livingston St. in Brooklyn that workers wouldn’t be able to get there within the mandatory two-hour reporting window. Meanwhile, as Google Maps shows, 180 Livingston St. is within walking distance of not just one or two subway lines but twelve different lines.

Maybe — maybe — if someone were coming from the far reaches of the Bronx or Queens, I would buy the two-hour excuse. But does that mean every single worker has to take a cab? Not in an age of rampant budget deficits. Every little bit counts.

Eric Giola, City Council member, summed it up best: “It seems like more Pataki-era waste and mismanagement that can be easily corrected by this new administration. While you want to ensure the accuracy of drug tests, $300,000 in taxi bills is over the top and unnecessary.”

I can’t make this stuff up, folks.

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Congestion FeeMTA EconomicsMTA Politics

Mayor Mike’s congestion tax plan sends more $$$ to mass transit

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 23, 2007

congestion-pricing-plan-map-222.jpg

The Mayor’s PLANYC2030 calls for an $8 congestion tax for cars enterting Manhattan’s Central Business District between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. during the week.

Woah, baby. If you think the Red Sox and Yankee fans have it out for each other, wait until the congestion fee foes start taking on the proponents of Mayor Bloomberg’s PLANYC2030. It’s going to get messy around here.

(Side note to Yankee fans: Don’t despair. Despite the infuriating managerial style of Joe Torre, this weekend wasn’t terrible. There’s more at River Ave. Blues. So go there. Ok. Plug over.)

On Sunday — Earth Day 2006 — Mayor Mike finally released the details of his plan to provide for a sustainable New York City by the year 2030. Heavy on the environmental aspects of creating a livable city and focusing on providing better public transportation for the Center of the Universe, Bloomberg’s plan will make or break Mayor Mike’s NYC legacy. And as with any comprehensive plan of this magnitude, it is rife with controversy.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore the various aspects of Bloomberg’s plan as they relate to public transportation. With the Second Ave. Subway and dedicated bus express lanes key proponents of the transportation aspect to PLANYC2030, I’ll have a lot to say. Today, let’s look at the congestion fee. The New York Times reports on what will be a very controversial plan:

The proposal that is sure to attract the most attention, and possibly objections, is one to impose the $8 fee on car drivers, and $21 for truck operators, to drive in Manhattan south of 86th Street. The mayor said congestion on the city’s streets is the source of many of the city’s health, environmental and economic problems. “We can’t talk about reducing air pollution without talking about congestion,” he said…

The fee the mayor is proposing would only be imposed during the week, between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.. And motorists driving the major highways along Manhattan’s east and west sides would not be fined, so it would be possible to go from Brooklyn to Harlem along Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive without entering the zone. The fee would be deducted from the tolls commuters already pay to come into Manhattan via the bridges or tunnels. There would be no toll booths, just a network of cameras that would capture license plate numbers and either charge a driver’s existing commuter account or generate a bill to be paid each time.

According to Bloomberg’s estimates, this congestion plan would generate $400 million in revenue in its first year alone. This money would be invested into the transportation network that serves and surrounds the city. The MTA would receive money for additional lines and much-needed upgrades.

Furthermore, as commuters are turned off from driving because of this high fee, more people will turn to the subways as alternate means of transportation, and the MTA should enjoy a financial benefit from the increased ridership as well.

As an advocate of mass transit, I am, as I noted on Friday, fully in support of this plan. Fewer cars in Manhattan, fewer cars on the roads around New York, that all sounds perfect to me.

But the debate will get nasty. Outer borough residents (wrongly) feel this will negatively impact their economies, and business owners won’t like the $21 truck charges which they will have to pick up. As part of the coverage of transportation in New York City, I’ll be following this debate as well. So stay tuned. It should be a good one.

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Service Advisories

J train out of joint for 4/20 weekend

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 20, 2007

Tee hee.

So all that work in the non-Manhattan parts of New York City continue this weekend. There is no J service between Broadway Junction and Jamaica Center. The A is still doing its wacky thing and there is no C service. But take heart, Brooklyn residents: After this weekend, just two more weekends of shuttle buses and loooong commutes await you.

The rest of the service advisories for the weekend can be found here. Just a note: The MTA has significantly redesigned and improved the service advisory Website. The landing page I link now includes links to all of the lines. It’s much easier to navigate. So that’s good.

Catch you on Monday. Go Yanks.

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BusesMTA Technology

MTA, congestion tax encourages public transportation use during Earth Day weekend

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 20, 2007

These hybrid-electric buses are designed to help the environment, two blocks at a time. (Photo Courtesy of NYSERDA.)

So it’s Earth Day weekend. After a year of increased awareness about the environmental changes confronting our globe, this weekend marks a time of year where the MTA highlights its latest and greatest efforts at cutting gas consumption and pollutant emissions.

Once upon time, Earth Day Weekend would be the only time of year when the MTA focused on its cutting-edge environmentally-friendly technology. But now, with Al Gore’s film and weird weather patterns all around us, more people are paying more attention to eco-friendly public transportation technology. Still, the MTA plans to pull out some stops this weekend during the EarthFair Outside festival.

According to the press release, MTA CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander will be on hand at Grand Central Terminal this afternoon at 12 noon to distribute free MetroCards and discuss the new buses — the hybrid-electric vehicle that roam the streets of New York.

Meanwhile, the MTA is hard at work (rightfully) promoting themselves as an environmentally friendly transportation alternative. They toss out some interesting numbers: Every full subway car keeps 75 to 125 cars off the road; full buses keep about 40 cars off the road. Public transportation cuts fuel consumption by a whopping 1.33 billion gallons yearly.

And here’s a kicker: Without the MTA’s services, 1.5 million more cars would enter Manhattan each day during rush hour, contributing to a whopping increase in pollution well above federal standards. Can you imagine that many more cars into the already crowded streets of the city? It would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Which brings me to today’s other news: According to reports, Mayor Bloomberg’s much heralded PLANYC2030, a plan to build a sustainable New York City within the next 23 years, will include a call for congestion pricing for cars south of 86th Street in Manhattan.

I love the idea of Congestion Taxes. The liberal environmentalist and pedestrian in me wants to see no cars other than essential vehicles in Manhattan. But I would settle for a tax where the money would go into providing better and more frequent subway service in a modernized system.

SUBWAYBlogger does an excellent job dissecting the pros and cons of Congestion Pricing as it would affect us straphangers. And Streetsblog, the home of pro-pedestrian, anti-car sentiment on the Internet, tackles the fight that will erupt over this plan and notes how groups are already resorting to falsehoods about Congestion Taxes to battle the Mayor’s soon-to-be-announced plan.

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MTA Absurdity

Pondering a clean, but closed, subway

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 19, 2007

I’m not eating anything off of that for a looooong time. (Photo courtesy of flickr user Ioan Sameli.)

A thought experiment, if you will: New York’s subways are not exactly known for their cleanliness. In fact, quite the opposite is true, and in a few weeks’ time, when the Straphangers release their annual Subway Shmutz Survey, we’ll know just how dirty our favorite subway lines are.

Last year, though, prospects were bleak. Only 47 percent of subway cars were rated as “clean,” and I have yet to see a subway car that I personally would consider, well, clean. Don’t even get me started with the stations. So while the Straphangers have urged the MTA to invest more resources into cleaning the cars, that ain’t happening anytime soon. So I present you instead with a hypothetical situation.

Throughout the rest of the world, big cities enjoy cleaner subway systems. London’s is clean; Moscow’s is clean; even the Metro in Washington, DC, has a reputation for cleanliness, nasty carpets and all. These systems are kept clean mostly because they shut down each night.

Every day, subway cars in most cities return home. They sit at the depots and are cleaned from top to bottom. Those with carpets are vacuumed; others are mopped and scrubbed. As the cars sit idle, the stations are far from empty. Cleaning crews descend into the depths of the subway and scrub away. Floors are swept and polished; garbage is collected.

But the citizens have to pay a price: There are few public transportation options late at night. Residents of London and DC scramble for those last trains out to the suburbs. Night owl bus service is a poor substitute for underground rail options, and taxi cabs are cost-prohibitive when compared to the price of a train ride.

So I ask: Should the New York City subway system shut down each night at, say, 1 a.m. and re-open four hours later for the morning commute? Would this improve the cleanliness of the system?

On the one hand, I am tempted to say, yes it would. A closed system would enable crews to work on cleaning the trains and stations. A closed system would also discourage homeless people — a big source of dirt and grime in the subways — from sleeping on trains night after night.

But on the other hand, a closed system is anathema to the essence of New York City. How could the Big Apple be the City That Never Sleeps if our subways are asleep? How could all the night workers — and there are a significant number of them — get home if the subways are closed? It seems that in a 24-hour city such as New York closing the subways is an impractical idea.

New York could choose to go the way of the WMATA in Washington. While the WMATA drew flack when police officers arrested a 12-year-old for eating one french fry in the Metro, this zero-tolerance policy got the point across. Few people risk the high fines for littering and eating in the system, especially as closed circuit cameras record the entire system. So maybe the MTA could institute a zero-tolerance policy for people who eat in the subway. It could help maintain at least some baseline level of cleanliness in an otherwise dirty system, and, hey, anything — even a ticket for someone “too busy” to eat elsewhere — is better than the current mess of the subways.

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BusesMTA Absurdity

In need of dough? How about delinquent bus fares?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 18, 2007

So the MTA may need some money for that whole Second Ave. subway thing. Maybe they should start enforcing bus fare collection.

According to reports released on Monday, bus fare hopping is becoming a growing problem in the City. The Post tracked down some delinquent bus riders and interviewed their drivers on Monday.

Grandparents, baby boomers and even mothers with carriages are becoming the city’s new scofflaws by using the rear exit doors on buses to get a free E-ZPass aboard. “It’s out of control!” said one 44-year-old Brooklyn driver who operates the B41 bus along Flatbush Avenue…

The Post recently saw dozens of kid-toting, shopping-bag-carrying folks aggressively hopping onto crowded buses through rear doors at the busy Fordham Road and Webster Avenue stop – sometimes preventing passengers from getting off.

One well-dressed, 57-year-old office worker and grandmother of two told The Post as she sneaked onto a bus that she does it because “everyone else is doing it.”

So, grandma, if everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do that, too?

The MTA had little information about the problem because they can’t really track the fares they don’t collect. The NYPD is in the same boat. While the police have stopped over 205,000 turnstile jumpers since 2005, the Boys in Blue have ticketed a whopping 21 people for ducking out on their bus fare.

According to Transit Spokesman Charles Seaton, fare-cheaters are common at busy stops and on the long accordion buses where the driver doesn’t have a very good view of the back door.

While any effort to ticket fare-jumpers on the bus system would probably cost more to implement than it would draw in, it’s just not cool to avoid paying for the bus. So don’t do it. Pay up, man. The MTA, after all, needs that money to build a new subway line.

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MTA EconomicsSecond Avenue Subway

Hey, where is the money?

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on April 16, 2007

With apologies to Nelly for the pun-derful headline, money was on the mind last week at the Second Ave. subway groundbreaking. For starters, there isn’t enough of it yet for this new subway line, and officials with the Transit Chapter of the Civil Service Technical Guild don’t think the money the MTA has is being spent wisely. Who woulda thunk it?

We start with the issue of funding, as reported by Reuters. According to the wire service’s reports, the MTA is still $800 million short, and Federal Transit Administration Administrator James Simpson called for some public-private partnerships. Not everyone was too thrilled with this idea, Joan Gralla reported.

Spitzer reacted noncommittally to Simpson’s proposal. Asked if New York should use public-private partnerships like Texas, which has the biggest U.S. program, Spitzer said: “Nobody is talking about that for the New York City subway.”

Chicago two years ago spurred states and cites to explore these partnerships — which are common overseas — when it got $1.83 billion by leasing its Skyway commuter toll bridge. But some fiscal monitors have bashed Chicago’s model, saying the city got too little for its 99-year lease, and gave up its right to share any extra tolls with the two companies — MIG, run by Australia’s investment bank, Macquarie Bank Ltd, and Cintra, part of Spanish construction giant Ferrovial.

In the same article, Mysore Nagaraja, the head of MTA Captial Construction, noted that the project would be finished in 2021 if funding held up. Wait a second, Mysore. I thought the the original end date was set for 2020. So we’re already a year behind schedule and nothing has happened yet. Uh oh.

Meanwhile, People’s Weekly World, a Union newspaper descended from the Daily Worker, questions the MTA’s decision to contract out some of the work for the construction of the Second Ave. subway.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority-NYC Transit contract calls for the private firm to do engineering work on the planned Second Avenue subway line, work that the union contends could be done more efficiently by in-house engineers.

It is estimated that some $384 million of the project’s anticipated $3.8 billion budget would be absorbed by this contract. This amounts to approximately $51 million for each year of the seven-year project. Union leaders report that their members could do the same work for only $8 million per year, resulting in a savings of more then $300 million over the life of the project.

Right now, I’m in no position to comment on the validity of the arguments set forth by the Civil Service Technical Guild as reported by PWW. But if the claims are accurate, I think I just found some of that missing $800 million for Phase 1 of this four-tiered project.

Sounds like we’re in for a fun ride over the next few years as the MTA gets to juggle a multi-billion-dollar public works program with a tortured history. Hold on, folks.

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