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Service Diversions 08-13-12

Posted by
on August 13th, 2012 at 5:23 am

I have just updated the Service Diversions by removing all of the work that wrapped up as of 5:01 AM. The latest work for the week is front & center.

As always if I see anything interesting or noteworthy, I will tweet about it so follow @TransitBlogger which you can easily do by clicking the button in the sidebar.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Service Diversions
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Service Diversions 08-10-12

Posted by
on August 10th, 2012 at 5:16 am

Get an early jump on your weekend travel plans as I have just updated the Service Diversions for this weekend, next week & beyond in some cases.

Follow me on Twitter by looking up @TransitBlogger or clicking the button in the sidebar as I am using it a lot more! Check the diversions page daily as I update it as changes occur, diversions end, etc….

As always, have a safe & wonderful weekend.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Subway Riders Scared Of Rotting Stairs

Posted by
on August 9th, 2012 at 3:23 am

A lot of subway stations have rotting staircases. This statement comes as no surprise considering the age & state of disrepair of the NYC Subway. So it came as no surprise when I came across a Daily News piece by Natalie Musumeci which talks about how riders of the N Train are scared of the rotten staircases at their local stations:

Corroded and nearly 100-year-old staircases at a slew of dilapidated subway stations along the N-line are at the top of straphangers’ list of complaints about the stops.

“The ceilings are falling down and the staircases are horrendous. It’s unsafe,” said Chris Morales, 35, of Bensonhurst who walks down the corroded stairwell at the 18th Avenue station everyday to catch the N to Manhattan.

“They are unstable and shaky. It’s a major hazard. The MTA is not taking care of maintenance,” said Morales. “The ceilings are crumbling. (Debris) could hit someone on the head.”

Built in 1915 , the 97-year-old subway stations last had “full rehab work” in the 1980’s, said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz.

“We are working on a plan to address the staircases,” said Ortiz in an email, adding that restoration on the stations from 8th Avenue to 86th Street is slated to begin in October 2014 and end in 2018.

The work “will address all structural defects at the station platform areas, including canopies, roofs, columns, back walls… platform edges…and stairways,” Ortiz said.

But State Assemblyman William Colton (D-Bensonhurst) said conditions at the stations are “in serious disrepair and dangerous” and that the rotting staircases are an “emergency.

Click here for the complete article.

The piece as expected contained nothing that millions of subway riders did not already know. The NYC Subway is in a terrible state of disrepair. The reality is riders in all 4 boroughs have to deal with such terrible conditions inside stations.

The only shocking thing if anything is it took so long to see a piece about how terrible the condition is of N Train stations in Brooklyn. When I first started taking transit photos 7-8 years ago, I spent a lot of time documenting how terrible Sea Beach line stations are. The sad truth is not much has changed when I have found myself at those same stations.

I do have a question for State Assemblyman William Colton though? While we can all agree that the stations need to be fixed with some of the repairs being of the emergency nature, where exactly do you think the money is coming from for it? Have you or any of your fellow elected officials come up with solutions to help raise the money necessary for these repairs? I did not think so…….

xoxo Transit Blogger

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MTA Bus Time Popular With S.I. Riders

Posted by
on August 8th, 2012 at 5:07 am

Back in October 2010 the MTA debuted Bus Time in Manhattan on the M16 & M34, the agency promised that it would be a huge hit amongst bus riders. They were so pleased with the pilot that it ended up heading to Brooklyn’s B63 in February 2011.

Last July, the agency announced it would be taking the Bus Time show on the road to Staten Island in January 2012 & would do one better versus its borough counterparts in that it would be available for all routes.

Fast forward months later and it is clear that it is a big hit in Staten Island as nearly 25% of riders have utilized the service. Here is more courtesy of an editorial in SI Live:

Waiting for a city bus is becoming a lot less frustrating and that’s thanks to the new high-tech locator system being adopted by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The MTA’s Bus Time program lets riders send text messages from mobile phones to obtain information on when the next bus will arrive at their stop.

So far, more than 33,000 people on Staten Island – nearly a quarter of the riders here – have made use of the system developed to provide the alerts.

According to the MTA, the real-time locator program has just hit the milestone of 1 million users citywide – just seven months after it was introduced.

“We are delighted by the rapid growth of the use of Bus Time,” said MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota. “This is a service that can really make it much easier to ride the bus, so it’s not a surprise that it’s proven to be so popular.”

Bus Time is available at all local and express routes serving Staten Island. Staten Island has two of the five most popular sites in the city for the use of the Bus Time service.

No. 3 on the citywide list is Hylan Boulevard and Clove Road, for those bus riders waiting for the S53, S78, S79, X1, X2, X3 or X9.

No. 4 is Victory Boulevard and Clove Road for those checking to find the location of the next S61, S62, S66, S91, S92 or S93.

Click here for the complete editorial.

I am so glad to see so many riders taking advantage of this innovation. Bus riders have long had to sit or mainly stand in agony wondering where their bus was while staring away in a distance. Thankfully Bus Time does away with that for a lot of riders as they can now make travel decisions with accurate & timely information. It will be great when riders on every single line in the region will be able to take advantage of this.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Officals Want MTA Tax Repealed For Colleges

Posted by
on August 8th, 2012 at 4:37 am

The much maligned MTA Payroll Tax is back in the news again. The tax which was created in 2009 as part of a $2.3 billion state bailout for the transit agency has never been popular with masses. When it first debuted, many businesses & counties themselves rallied against it & even sued questioning the constitutionality of it.

Eventually the tax was amended to exclude public school districts & a small percentage of small businesses. However even with those changes, some state lawmakers from Long Island are not satisfied as they now want it to exclude community colleges. Alfonso A. Castillo of Newsday has more:

State lawmakers from Long Island on Tuesday announced legislation to exempt community colleges in Nassau and Suffolk from paying the MTA’s payroll tax.

At a morning news conference at Suffolk County Community College in Selden, Assemb. Joseph Saladino (R-Massapequa), who drafted the bill, said it would save each of Long Island’s two community colleges about $400,000 a year in the MTA Payroll Mobility Tax.

Click here for the complete report.

I admit that I questioned how successful this tax would be. It was blatantly obvious that it would face resistance from those who don’t use mass transit or live in areas really served by the MTA. I could understand the concept of it seeming unfair for public school districts to be exempt while colleges are not. However let’s go with another angle here.

For starters, state lawmakers need to stop with the status quo talking points about how the agency continues to waste money, etc…. As if they have been paying attention over the last couple of years, the agency has publicly shared their strategies as to how they cut costs while trying to build up on is efficiency. The transparency has been there which is more than we can say about these same lawmakers.

So if you were to be given the exemption for community colleges, what are your ideas as to how that money would be replaced? Oh that is right, you don’t have any ideas as transit is not a priority of yours since most of your constituents drive. Well think long & hard about how much more disastrous traffic would be on the island if the LIRR had much less service or ceased to exist? I doubt one person out here wants to picture that scenario.

Here is a novel idea, come up with some strategies to replace the money that would be lost from exempting community colleges & only then should an exemption be considered. I won’t hold my breath………

xoxo Transit Blogger

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