Second Ave. Sagas

MTA fare hikes on hold for rest of decade?

by Benjamin Kabak November 29, 2006

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 29, 2006

Good news for those of us who ride the buses and subways today: The MTA won’t be raising fares next year and could hold off on fare hikes until after 2010.

Here’s what The Daily News had to say:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is finalizing its 2007 budget and plans to vote by Christmas on a spending plan that holds the line on bus and subway fares, board sources said last night.

The final financial package, expected to be unveiled today and approved next month, also holds steady ticket prices for Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road, as well as tolls for the MTA’s bridges and tunnels, the sources said.

MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said this year he didn’t believe the $240 million in hikes – which had been on the books – would be needed because the economy, particularly the real estate market, was doing better than expected. The agency gets revenues from real estate transactions.

Coupled with the lack of fare hikes comes better news about the $20 million in proposed service cuts originally announced in September. According to MTA board sources, those cuts are off the table, The Daily News also reports. Originally, these cuts were planned as follows, according to The Times:

The cuts would add one to five minutes to wait times on many subway lines and local bus routes during off-peak periods. For subways, it would mean that on weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., all trains would run every 10 minutes, according to authority budget documents. Evening and late-night waiting times would be from 10 to 20 minutes.

Somehow, the money will flow in anyways, but now we the riders won’t be forced to wait longer or pay more.

November 29, 2006 0 comment

Fulton Street

Function, form battling it out at Fulton Street

by Benjamin Kabak November 28, 2006

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 28, 2006

As part of the plans for rebuilding and redeveloping Lower Manhattan, the MTA has invested nearly $900 million in their plans to build a transportation hub at Fulton Street. With plans for 12 subway lines to be connected through the hub, the new Fulton Street will become the largest connecting station in the system, beating out the 10 trains that run through Times Square and the Atlantic Ave.-Pacific Street stop.

But as with any capital improvement campaign, the Fulton Street construction efforts have not gone smoothly, The New York Times noted today. With real estate costs exceeding expectations by nearly $100 million, some of the more ostentatious aspects of the Fulton Street hub may be scaled back. In particular, the showy dome that is supposed to cover the grand entrance may not be as showy as the original plans called for it to be:

The dome, intended to maximize the natural light entering the complex, would sit atop a 50-foot-high glass-enclosed building designed by the British architectural firm Grimshaw. The dome, which is called an oculus, was initially designed to be 50 feet high, taking the total height to about 100 feet, Mr. Nagaraja said, but it has already been scaled back to about 20 feet.

While it would seem obvious to cut back the size of the dome, which serves no function beyond aesthetics, some at the MTA wanted to scrap the planned underground connection to the R and W at Cortlandt Street and the E at the World Trade Center. But the MTA board would have none of that:

Yesterday, the authority’s board members landed firmly on the side of function over form, saying they would gladly sacrifice architectural beauty if it meant that subway riders could transfer between trains more easily.

“I won’t support a project like this that is going to discombobulate tens of thousands of passengers a day because you want to have a fancy roof,” said Barry L. Feinstein, a board member.

So as the Fulton Street hub stumbles toward its late-2009 completion, it does seem as though form of some sort will win out over the style. The Daily News notes that some connector tunnels may not be built because cash is tight, but somehow, I think the New York pols will find a way to dig up some more money for this project. We already have to wait two years beyond the original target date for completion. What’s a few more million dollars as well?

November 28, 2006 4 comments

View from Underground

New York on subways

by Benjamin Kabak November 21, 2006

written by Benjamin Kabak on November 21, 2006

Welcome to Second Ave. Sagas, a blog about the New York City subway.

I’m a native New Yorker and a huge subway buff. I like riding the trains; I like reading about the trains; I like being on the trains that run for hundreds of miles underneath (and sometimes above) the streets of New York. And now I’m going to try my hand at writing about trains. With a bunch of experience blogging on the Yankees, I want to branch out.

With the Election results in for the 2006 mid-term elections, the future is looking grand for transportation in New York. Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Jerry Nadler, two of the Democrats’ prominent leaders, in positions of power, the pork should be flowing our way soon. As the Gotham Gazette wrote shortly after the election:

The election of a new governor and the Democrat’s takeover of both the House and Senate bode well for funding of transportation projects in New York City. The bottom line is that New Yorkers can seriously talk about not only the two megaprojects that are furthest along in obtaining critical federal funding — the Second Avenue subway and linking the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal — but also a second set of projects whose prospects have been less luminous.

Schumer, as the leader of the DSCC, will call in some favors to get these and other projects off the ground and running. On the House side, Nadler stands to inherit the reins of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. If Schumer, Nadler and Governor-elect Elliot Spitzer can work together, we’ll see a lot of transportation developments over the next few years, and I’ll be here to write about it. Stick around for the ride. And stand clear of the closing doors please.

November 21, 2006 2 comments