Fulton Street

Video: Installing the Sky Reflector-Net at Fulton St.

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 18, 2013

For everything that goes wrong during the MTA’s latest capital projects — missed deadlines, blown budgets, leaky stations — the Arts for Transit installations seemingly always go right. What originally grew out of New York City’s Percent for Art program has grown into a nationally recognized showcase for artists, both established and otherwise, that lends an air of civic appreciation, levity and culture to the New York City subways. From Tom Otterness’ figures that live in the 14th St. station at 8th Ave. to a permanent Sol LeWitt installation at Columbus Circle, the subway is the cheapest art museum in New York City.

With a bunch of new subway stops set to open over the next three years, Arts for Transit has the opportunity to draw headlines, and they’ve been doing just that. With just one percent of the budget for the MTA’s capital projects, Arts for Transit can spend on local artists. Back in 2011, the Wall Street Journal profiled some art for the Second Ave. subway, but more immediate is the opening of the Fulton St. Transit Hub. Set for this upcoming June, the hub features an oculus with an installation called “Sky Reflector-Net.” Designed by James Carpenter Design Associates (JCDA), Grimshaw Architects, and Arup, this work features 112 tensioned cables, 224 high-strength rods, and nearly 10,000 individual stainless steel components. It will move over time as well.

This week, the MTA released a video about the installation, and I am fascinated by this. It’s not transit ops or anything sexy, but it makes the subway more livable and enjoyable. It makes people pause for a second and appreciate what’s around and above them. So check out the short video above on the piece. I’ll have more later today, including a new episode of “The Next Stop Is…” and some thoughts on Select Bus Service, BRT and transit innovation in New York City. Where are the people advocating for light rail and more comprehensive transportation solutions anyway?

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View from Underground

Blind man survives serious platform stumble

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 17, 2013

The MTA is testing track intrusion detection technology at one undisclosed station.

From an MTA statement, here’s what happened this morning at 125th Street on the 8th Ave. line. It’s a crazy story:

At approximately 9:30am this morning, customers on the northbound platform at 125 St alerted subway personnel that a blind customer and his service dog had fallen onto the northbound express tracks at the station.

A construction flagger at the station observed the customer on the roadbed and instructed the customer to stay down in the trough between the rails and not attempt to climb back up onto the platform.

Other customers attempted to alert the train operator of an approaching northbound A train to stop. Contrary to initial reports, the train operator was unable to stop in time and 1 ½ cars did pass over the customer. The train did not come in contact with the customer and he was removed with minor lacerations to his head to St. Luke’s Hospital. There were no noticeable injuries to the dog.

Pete Donohue was on the scene and spoke with witnesses. No one was quite sure how the man and his dog fell or how they survived, but, needless to say, everyone was relieved.

This headline-grabbing incident comes toward the end of a year that saw increased attention to passenger/train collisions and platform jumpers. Yet, according to Donohue, the 2013 numbers so far — 144 riders hit, 52 deaths — isn’t too far out of line with the averages of 134 and 49, respectively. Still, the MTA is planning to test, at one unnamed station, track intrusion technology. It’s hard to know how successful the test will be as there are no real hot spots for customers entering the tracks, but it is at least a nod to passenger safety.

For its part, the TWU is still advocating for a slowdown that would be costly and disruptive to subway riders. And so it goes.

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Superstorm Sandy

For South Ferry, mitigation and a new signal room

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 17, 2013
The MTA has proposed a variety of locations for an above-ground signal relay room for the South Ferry area.

The MTA has proposed a variety of locations for an above-ground signal relay room for the South Ferry area.

When last I saw the new South Ferry station, it was in tatters. I journeyed into the station this past February, nearly four months after Sandy, and it was a ghost town. Mud, dirt and leaves washed in by the floodwaters marred the station while soggy ceiling panels still lay on the floor of the totaled control room. The signal system was fried, and it was clear it would take a long time for the MTA to restore service to the station.

On Monday, we learned that the MTA is targeting mid-2016 for the station’s revival. In a presentation to the MTA Board’s Capital Program Oversight Committee, Vice President & Program Executive John O’Grady discussed the station’s immediate future and the long-term plans for protecting the signal room. Eventually, the work may stretch on for the better part of the remainder of the decade and could involve yet another fight over part of Battery Park.

During his presentation, O’Grady focused first on the immediate needs. Revenue service is expected to resume in June of 2016, and the MTA is still eying $600 million, all in Sandy recovery funds from the federal government, as the project’s budget. The work will involve essentially stripping out everything from the station and rebuilding it from the shell up. And yes, included in this work will be a renewed focus on leak mitigation, a problem that needed solving since the day the new South Ferry station opened.

As far as timing goes, the MTA plans to start the bid process in early 2014. The demolition package will be advertised in January, and the station complex work will be advertised in February. The key focus though will be on protecting the signal relay room as its importance extends well beyond the South Ferry station. Where it will end up is anyone’s guess.

The immediate problem with South Ferry, besides its vulnerability to flooding, is the above-ground land use. There isn’t much free space, and a large portion of the southern tip of Manhattan is devoted to parkland that nearby neighbors defend with their lives (and their lawyers). The MTA ran into some issues regarding tree removal during the initial construction of the new South Ferry station, and now the agency is again proposing to take some parkland for transit uses.

According to O’Grady’s presentation, the MTA will engage in interim flood remediation efforts for the South Ferry signal relay, including submarine-style doors that can effectively protect electrical equipment in the face of an incoming storm. But to ensure the signals are safe, they have to be constructed above ground. To that end, the MTA has proposed a series of locations, some of which are in Battery Park, that are protected and near enough to key switches to remain effective. To build an above-ground room with proper relay equipment could take until 2019.

For now, the relocated signal room is a plan but not a definite one. The MTA will move ahead with its underground fortifications and will stockpile spare parts in the event of another flood. One way or another, the effects of Sandy will linger well into the second half of the decade, and we’ll keep crossing our fingers that another storm doesn’t sweep through while all this work is underway.

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7 Line ExtensionAsidesSuperstorm Sandy

Coming Attractions: South Ferry in 2016; 7 extension (sort of) on Friday

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 16, 2013

Two quick hits on some outstanding items right now with more to come: The MTA confirmed today that the new South Ferry station, totaled by Sandy’s floodwaters in October of 2012, will reopen at some point in 2016. The project is still expected to cost around $600 million — or the same as it cost to build the station from scratch — and it will include significant remediation work. MTA Board materials contain more details on the remediation that I’ll cover tonight, and Matt Flegenheimer confirmed the 2016 date during the Board’s Capital Program Oversight Committee meeting today.

In more current news, the 7 line extension is sort of set to open this week. While the station at 34th St. and 11th Ave. isn’t set to enter revenue service until June of 2014, with the primary funding partner on the way out of office at the end of the month, the MTA and Mayor Bloomberg will host a ceremonial ribbon cutting this Friday afternoon. We haven’t seen many images from inside the station cavern lately, but clearly, crews have made enough progress to conduct a limited run of a subway train set for dignitaries. I’m hoping to snag a seat on the ride and will, of course, have plenty of photos if I do. Stayed tuned for more on that front too.

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Metro-North

Two weeks later, questioning MNR’s speedy safety response

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 15, 2013

Crews installed speed restriction signs at Metro-North’s Port Chester station on December 12, 2013. Photo: MTA / Patrick Cashin

When the MTA is in crisis mode, it has shown the ability to respond quickly and efficiently to address issues. For an agency not known for finishing projects on time, adapting new technologies within any reasonable timeframe or generally seeing through innovation, time and again, the MTA tackles major problems better than just about any other governmental agency. Most subway service was restored less than a week after Sandy in 2012, and, more recently, Metro-North and the LIRR instituted sweeping safety improvements barely a week after the first crash with passenger fatalities in Metro-North history.

For this, the MTA deserves some praise. The agency has learned how to make the most out of potentially catastrophic scenarios and has become adept at responding. But the speed with which the MTA addressed some major underlying safety concerns over the past few weeks has raised some eyebrows. Why did it take a fatal crash to implement basic safety upgrades? If these problems were so easy to fix, why weren’t they implemented years ago?

WNYC’s Kate Hinds raised this question on her Twitter account last week, and today, Matt Flegenheimer tackles it in The Times. Here’s an excerpt of his story, and it is not particularly kind:

Since a Metro-North Railroad train derailed in the Bronx on Dec. 1, killing four people and injuring more than 70, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has not had to look far for safety remedies that might have prevented the crash. Recently ordered improvements, delivered in response to the derailment, have been borrowed from Metro-North’s sister agency, the Long Island Rail Road, and at times from the Metro-North system itself.

Changes significant enough to have thwarted the crash, according to rail experts, were simple enough to have been completed within days. Others are so straightforward that some of the authority’s board members assumed they had been in place for years. While the authority and federal investigators have cautioned that a full accounting of the derailment is not yet complete, many transit officials have arrived at a troubling conclusion since the crash: The authority could have — and in many cases should have — installed a series of protections long before the train’s operator apparently became dazed at the controls early that Sunday morning, racing into a sharp curve at nearly three times the allowable speed…

Asked why broader changes to Metro-North’s signal system were not made sooner — particularly at well-known curves like the one at Spuyten Duyvil — Marjorie Anders, a spokeswoman for the authority, said it was the job responsibility of train operators to “know all the physical characteristics, including the speed limits” in all areas where they were qualified to work. For more than 30 years, she said, “that system worked fine,” with no accident-related passenger fatalities since Metro-North was created in 1983. The recent changes were “a result of the intense introspection currently underway at Metro-North,” she said.

The bulk of Flegenheimer’s explores the reactions to the MTA’s changes. Board members were surprised by the speed at which Metro-North implemented its fixes and were floored to find out that many were rooted in common sense and parallel best-practices in place at the Long Island Rail Road. “The fact that some of the stuff was done in the rebuilding of track that occurred over a couple of days, it does lead you to believe that it could have been done earlier,” William Henderson, head of the MTA’s Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee, said.

Other MTA Board members wondered if an intense focus on on-time performance was to blame while others wondered if the federal government’s singular approach to safety via a federally mandated positive train control system forced the MTA to examine safety issues through a single-lens approach. “I think it may have slowed down the process, actually,” Ira Greenberg said to The Times. “Why put in a system on top of a system that does virtually the same thing, when you can wait for the better one?”

Ultimately, though, the MTA’s response to the crash and the response to the response brings up a tried-and-true problem with the agency — and really any government agency of its size and breadth. The MTA has been essentially reactive for decades now as it has struggled to overcome decades of deferred maintenance and disinvestment in the system. It is not a proactive leader in the global field of transit, and it may never get there. From an area as basic as the fare payment technology to a realm as important as safety, the MTA has not been ahead of the curve, and two weeks ago, it proved quite costly indeed.

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Service Advisories

Snow torpedoes most weekend work; SantaCon halts drinking

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 14, 2013

On Saturday, from morning until night, a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings dressed as Santa will descend upon New York City. While the NYPD isn’t so keen on the event and some business owners want these folks gone, SantaCon will go on as planned this year, but would-be revelers won’t be able to drink on their ways into the city as neither Metro-North nor LIRR will allow alcohol on trains for 24 hours this weekend.

From noon on Saturday until noon on Sunday, commuter rail riders won’t be able to pre-game on the way into Manhattan. MTA Police Officers will be stationed in Grand Central, Penn Station and elsewhere to enforce this rule, and those drinking will see their beverages confiscated. Violators will also wind up with $50 fines, 30 days in prison or both. Drinker be ware.

Meanwhile, with a few inches of snow heading our way, the MTA has decided to cancel nearly all weekend work for the next two days. As of now, the Nostalgia Train will run as schedules, but subway service is nearly in the clear. Your changes are below. If you want some other weekend diversions, check out the video below from the MTA. It’s a PSA on platform safety staring one of the agency’s lead spokespeople. Whether Kevin surveys is apparently a topic of great debate within the MTA.


From 12:01 a.m. Saturday, December 14 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 16, D trains operate in two sections between Stillwell Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard, and between Bedford Park Blvd and 205th Street due to track maintenance north of Bedford Park Boulevard.


From 11:45 p.m. Friday, December 13 to 5 a.m. Monday, December 16, G trains are suspended between Court Square and Nassau Avenue due to Sandy Recovery Work in the Greenpoint Tube. Free shuttle buses operate in two sections between Nassau Avenue and Court Square on the G Line, and between Lorimer Street and Court Square G stations.

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Public Transit Policy

Ferries vs. CitiBikes: Thinking about city subsidies

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 13, 2013

As the Year of the Ferry draws to a close, New Yorkers with ready access to the waterfront are in for a treat. As a parting gift, Mayor Bloomberg announced today that the city will extend its annual subsidy for ferry service for an additional five years through 2019. While weekend fares will go up to $6 per ride, the city will continue its $3 million annual subsidy, and boats will continue to ply the East River.

“The East River Ferry has been a huge success and demonstrates the demand for efficient, affordable transit to points along the City’s waterfront,” Michael Bloomberg said. “We now can promise commuters and visitors access to these waterfront neighborhoods via ferry for the next five years, sustaining an essential part of our Administration’s transportation vision and spurring economic growth across the City.”

According to a release by the mayor’s office, the ferries have been a success with three million passengers since a June 2011. The ridership has far surpassed initial estimates, and critics of the program — including me — have come around a bit. As the city notes, the ferries have “become an integral part of the city’s transportation infrastructure, improving transit connections between emerging waterfront neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, enhancing mobility in New York Harbor for residents and visitors, increasing flexibility for emergency transportation services, and supporting the ongoing reactivation of much of the East River waterfront.”

Now I’m happy to admit that I was wrong on the ferries. I didn’t think the effort was succeed, and I thought the city was wasting taxpayer dollars on something that had tried and failed. But due to the changing demographics of New York, the time is ripe for waterfront ferry service, and people who live in luxury buildings near the DUMBO, Williamsburg and Long Island City waterfronts, as well as though coming from Red Hook, have flocked to the service.

That’s all well and good, but I still think the spending priorities here a bit skewed. The ferries serve a small subset of New Yorkers and aren’t part of a network that can expand much beyond developed areas the waterfront. On the flip side of this coin is another new “last-mile” transportation system that relies on network effects to expand and could reach every single surface street in New York City for much less than the monthly bulk discounts
offered by the ferry. I am, of course, talking about CitiBike, New York’s bikeshare system.

Currently, CitiBike is supported by a $40 million grant from CitiBank that covers five years of service, and the city hasn’t forked over taxpayer dollars beyond some marginal monies. Why? A $3 million annual investment in CitiBike would allow for an increased reach and capacity by nearly 40 percent, and CitiBike needs that network effect to grow. If New York City has a limited pool of money from which it can support transportation, is this focus on ferries that serve neighborhoods that are generally well-off and well-connected neighborhoods off the mark?

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Metro-North

FRA set for ‘Deep Dive’ on Metro-North safety

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 13, 2013

Crews installed speed restriction signs at Metro-North’s Port Chester station yesterday. Photo: MTA / Patrick Cashin

Less than two weeks after a fatal crash that killed four people and a few days after the MTA rushed to implement federally mandated safety improvements, the Federal Railroad Administration has announced it will begin an exhaustive review of Metro-North’s “safety culture” over the next two months. The 60-day review will commence on Monday, and this so-called Operation Deep Dive is the first of its kind.

“Safety is our top priority, and this in-depth investigation will help ensure that Metro-North is doing everything possible to improve its safety record,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said. “Together with our other recent efforts, Operation Deep Dive will give travelers the peace of mind they deserve when traveling throughout the railroad’s region.”

According to the FRA, the review will be comprehensive and will explore the following factors:

  • Track, signal and rolling stock maintenance, inspection and repair practices;
  • Protection for employees working on rail infrastructure, locomotives and rail cars;
  • Communication between mechanical and transportation departments at maintenance facilities;
  • Operation control center procedures and rail traffic controller training;
  • Compliance with federal Hours of Service regulations, including fatigue management programs;
  • Evaluating results of operational data to measure efficiency of employees’ execution and comprehension of all applicable federal regulations;
  • Locomotive engineer oversight;
  • Engineer and conductor certification; and
  • Operating crew medical requirements.

Once the review wraps in mid-February, the FRA will produce a report with its findings and recommendations. Then agency will assess Metro-North’s compliance with the safety order issued last week and will assess if other actions are necessary. According to various reports, the FRA decision stemmed not only from the fatal crash earlier this month but also from a series of accidents, fatal and non-fatal, over the course of 2013.

For its part, Metro-North has seemingly embraced the review. In comments to The Times, a spokesman said the agency was examining its safety culture and working to assess “whether there are any common factors” to the various accidents this month. Meanwhile, the MTA is hoping that, in light of recent bad press and the perception of the problem, it can find a silver lining in this cloud. Ted Mann of The Wall Street Journal reports on a large fiscal ask:

Also Thursday, the MTA asked the FRA for a new $1 billion loan from a federally controlled program to pay for installation of positive train control, or PTC, a next-generation signal system that is intended to prevent train crashes caused by operator error, including speeding.

The $1 billion loan request comes in addition to the $2.2 billion MTA has already sought to help pay for East Side Access, a massive, subterranean new terminal station for the Long Island Rail Road beneath the streets north of Grand Central Terminal. That loan request has not been approved.

In a letter to Administrator Joseph Szabo, Mr. Prendergast said the federal loan would provide a much needed infusion of cash as the MTA develops PTC systems for Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. The MTA is among a number of large commuter railroads that said they do not expect to meet the December 2015 deadline to install PTC systems on all inter-city passenger and many freight rail lines.

As Mann notes, the $1 billion request is for — surprise! — $300 million more than the MTA originally priced out a PTC installation. It’s unclear why the project is over budget, but the new number comes as no surprise. As Mann notes as well, the MTA does not believe that it will be in compliance with a 2015 deadline for PTC, but New York’s is hardly the only transit agency facing such a problem. Legislation to extend the deadline to 2020 is pending the U.S. Senate.

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View from Underground

Links: Noisy trains in Queens, a pizza parlor opens and more

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 12, 2013

The day job’s kept me busy lately, and I haven’t had an opportunity to do a proper post. The tabs are piling up though so let’s dive in.

Quieting the Q Train

While the BMT Astoria Line has snaked through Queens since 1917, residents have become to grumble about the noise. Reportedly, the brakes on the new rolling stock in use on the N and Q trains are louder than previous generations even as the rides overall are quieter. After determining that the brakes added 10 decibels to the area’s sound levels, the MTA will install sound dampeners on Astoria-bound trains.

City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. was the pol behind the push. “This deafening noise has been scaring little kids, startling our senior citizens and damaging our eardrums for far too long,” Vallone said last week, seemingly without a hint of irony.

A Jackson Heights pizza shop opens, finally

It’s been two years since Famous Famiglia won the bidding to operate a pizza parlor in the 3000-square foot space available in the Jackson Heights subway station, and now the slices are ready to go. After years of stops and starts due to construction designs and various requirements imposed by law and the MTA, Famous Famiglia opened this week with a ribbon cutting. The space had been empty for years, and Famiglia will pay the MTA at least $2.6 million over the next 20 years.

Miscellanea

The NYPD is cracking down on subway panhandling…Despite eying a costly PATH extension to Newark Airport, the Port Authority isn’t very interested in a one-seat ride to JFK right now…Speaking of Port Authority, it’s a real mess there right now…Federal commuter benefits are set to decrease to $130 per month at the end of the year while parking subsidies are going up to $250…More later.

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MTA Politics

Some thoughts on city control vs. Mayoral power

by Benjamin Kabak
written by Benjamin Kabak on December 11, 2013

It’s been a few months since the idea of city control over the MTA creeped into the news. At one point, city control came up nearly weekly at Sal Albanese, Joe Lhota and Christine Quinn all set forth proposals for city control of either its transit system or the MTA. But also-rans don’t get to set policy, and now that the waning days of Bloomberg are upon us, a discussion on city control has reentered the picture.

The latest comes to us from The Observer and general New York gadfly Larry Penner. He calls upon our mayor-elect to reassess city control over its transit system. My revoking the lease agreement in place between New York City and the New York City Transit Authority, Penner argues, Bill de Blasio could quickly move to reassert mayoral control over the subways.

Political reality makes this potential move a non-starter, but Penner’s piece tosses around a few ideas worth exploring. Noting that the MTA was born out of a need to shore up finances and remove politics from the decision-making process, Penner touches upon a theme I’ve covered: Albany is willing to take credit for the good, but no one will take credit for the bad. City control can solve that problem.

If Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio feels he could do a better job running the nation’s largest subway and bus system, will he step up to the plate now and regain control of his destiny? … Mr. de Blasio has fellow Democrats NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Letitia James and a future NYC Council Speaker, along with 48 of 51 NYC Council members. Starting with the upcoming July 1, 2014 municipal budget, will they work with him to support increasing NYC’s capital funding to the MTA?

…Mr. de Blasio has fellow Democrats Governor Andrew Cuomo, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, along with 99 members of the State Assembly. Fifty-nine are based in NYC. There are 16 more from Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Dutchess counties, giving Silver a working majority. State Senate minority leader Andrea Stewart-Cummins has 20 of 22 members from NYC. There are two more members lead by Senator Jeffrey Klein of the “Independent Democratic Caucus” from NYC. Add two other NYC-based and 12 Long Island-Hudson Valley suburban Republican State Senators led by GOP Senate leader Dean Skelos, and there is a working majority coalition within the MTA service area.

Asking suburban-based members of the State Legislature—be they Assembly members or State Senators, Democrats or Republicans—to support any non NYC resident paying a commuter tax has historically been and will continue to be doomed to failure. This will continue with all having to face voters in 2014. Asking them all to support increasing funding to the MTA would benefit constituents of NYC based public officials who ride New York City Transit bus and subway. It would also benefit suburban based office holders whose constituents ride either the Long Island Rail Road or Metro North Rail Road. This could build a winning majority coalition in both the State Assembly and State Senate. Will Mr. de Blasio attempt to build bridges on mutual issues of interest with suburban residents that could benefit everyone? Will he challenge Albany to increase its contribution to the next 2015-2019 MTA Capital Program by billions more?

Penner’s piece is perhaps written through rose-colored glasses. While the MTA districts may have a majority of seats in Albany, Democrats and Republicans do not see eye-to-eye on transit funding schemes, tax plans or direct capital contributions. They won’t work together, and they certainly won’t bridge the gap because the new mayor of New York, who ran on an aggressive left-wing platform, asks nicely.

City control, therefore, remains unlikely, and even the head of the MTA — who knows his boss is in Albany — has spoken against it. It won’t solve the problems of responsibility or funding, and no mayor will voluntarily take on a headache of which New York cured itself back in the early 1950s.

I have a hard time finding even a silver lining in the city control cloud. By removing the decision-making from the hands of the state, the city will have to take on funding obligations it hasn’t seen fit to address for decades. Plus, the regional planning issues — which the MTA barely addresses — will fall entirely by the wayside right when they shouldn’t. With a mayor-elect who identifies as a driver, it’s hardly the time to expect for progressive transit leadership from City Hall even if we hope for better (or at least Bloombergian levels of support).

So we are again left with the feeling that city control is an idea that sounds better in practice than reality. City residents already control six of the MTA’s 14 board votes and numerous non-voting seats, and de Blasio can set transportation policy — especially in the realm of buses and street space — through the Department of Transportation. Let’s not yet wrest subway control and the financial hassles that come with it from the state quite yet.

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