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Nassau County Must Pay MTA $20 Million

Posted by
on January 5th, 2011 at 4:23 pm

The battle between the MTA & Nassau County has reached a new level. The two normally battle it out over the county’s routine shortchange of funding for Long Island bus, but this time it was over money owed from a loan.

15 years ago, the MTA agreed to lend the county $51M dollars & in return, the county had to pay back $102M which would go towards capital projects in the county. Most of the money had been paid but the MTA was owed more money & sued for the rest of it. The State Supreme Court sided with the MTA & stated the county is on the hook for the full amount. Alfonso A. Castillo of Newsday has more:

Already struggling to meet its financial obligations to the MTA, Nassau County may have to pay the transit agency an additional $20 million following a state court’s decision in a lawsuit stemming from a financial deal made between the two sides 15 years ago.

According to the suit, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority lent “the cash-strapped county” $51 million in 1996 in a “2-for-1” agreement in which Nassau agreed to pay back twice that sum in funds for MTA capital projects in Nassau.

Nassau issued bonds to raise the full $102 million and made good on $89 million of the capital funding it had committed to the MTA. But, according to the suit, in 2001 the county filed a lawsuit looking to get out of the agreement, arguing that the MTA had overstepped its authority in making the deal.

The MTA in April filed a counterclaim arguing that Nassau illegally reneged on its agreement.

State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kapnick, in a Dec. 22 decision, granted the MTA’s legal claim “in its entirety” – ordering Nassau to pay the $13.6 million it owes the MTA from the original deal, up to $7.3 million in further capital funding, interest on the debt and attorneys’ fees.

Friday, MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin drew a parallel between Nassau’s failure to make good on its 1996 deal and its failure to fund LI Bus. “This ruling makes it clear that Nassau County’s obligations to the MTA are not optional and shouldn’t be treated that way,” Soffin said.

Click here for the complete report.

I am glad to hear that the State Supreme Court sided with the MTA on this issue. For too long, the county has neglected their responsibilities to the MTA & the services it provides to the county. They had major audacity to take the money & years later look to weasel out of paying back their debt. This one fact alone should show you how inept & corrupt the county has been with their finances.

This brings up another point, why is it the MTA seems to stand up to Nassau County but not Albany? As good as it is for the agency to get the money they are rightfully owed by Nassau, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the money they are owed by New York City & New York State. Is this a changing of attitude towards the government? Hopefully so as the years of shortchanging need to stop right now.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Culver Viaduct Rehabilitation Project Reminder

Posted by
on January 5th, 2011 at 1:27 am

Yesterday afternoon, MTA NYC Transit issued a reminder press release for the start of the next phase of the Culver Viaduct rehabilitation project. This phase will cause F Train & G Train trains to skip certain stations until next year:

MTA New York City Transit is making much needed repairs and improvements to Brooklyn’s Culver Line including the rebuilding of the Viaduct structure and the renewal of its tracks, signals and switches. We will also rehabilitate the Smith-9th station and restore platforms, canopies and the historic arch at the 4th Avenue-9th Street station.

This $275.5 million engineering and construction project is necessary to rehabilitate the steel and concrete viaduct first opened in 1933 as part of the IND system. The project area stretches from the tunnel portal south of the Carroll Street station to the portal south of Fourth Avenue. In preparation for this work, the G line has been extended to Church Avenue since July 2009. This current phase of the project will begin this month and continue until the Fall of 2012. During this long-term project, trains will be required to skip some stations.

In order to prepare for this phase of the project, this weekend’s F and G service (January 7 – January 10) between Jay Street-MetroTech and Church Avenue will be replaced by free shuttle buses in both directions. Then, beginning 5 a.m. Monday, January 10 through May 2011, the following changes will be in effect:

No Manhattan-bound F or Queens-bound G service at 15th Street Prospect Park and Ft. Hamilton Parkway Stations.

No Manhattan-bound F service at Smith-9th Sts Station. Queens-bound G service stops at a temporary platform.

All Manhattan and Queens-bound trains stop on the express track at Church Avenue and 7th Avenue stations.

Manhattan-bound F and Queens-bound G trains stop at a temporary platform accessed via the Coney Island-bound platform at 4th Avenue-9th Street station.

In future phases of the project, the Smith-9th Sts station will close completely for rehabilitation from late May 2011 through Spring 2012. Then from the Spring of 2012 to the Fall of 2012, there will be no Coney Island-bound F trains at the Smith-9th Street station.

In addition, from the late Fall of 2011 to the Spring of 2012, the following changes will be in effect:

No Coney Island-bound F or Church Avenue-bound G trains at 15th Street-Prospect Park and Ft. Hamilton Parkway stations.

All southbound trains will stop on the express track at Church Avenue and 7th Avenue stations.

Coney Island-bound F and Church Avenue-bound G trains will stop at a temporary platform at the 4th Avenue-9th Street station.

As one might expect, this loss of service is not sitting well with riders in the community who are upset. Normally I chalk it up to calling out the clueless & whiny people who never want their personal service affected but cry foul when it falls to a state of disrepair.

However the idiocy of these complaints goes even further if that is possible. I was doing a regular check of transit related stories on Google News & decided to check out the report on this next phase of the project on Gothamist. Their report included one of many complaint e-mails they received about the upcoming changes. Here is a highlight from the 1 e-mail posted:

I’m absolutely livid that this is happening with a week’s notice, especially in the winter. This is the first we’re hearing of this and is part of a chain of the F train messing with us (shuttles this weekend…again…whoo-hoo!)

Idiots like this are exactly the ones who don’t want their service affected but at the same time complain about the conditions. They have lived here for 2 months & did not know about the project. To them I say, learn to do complete research before moving! Whenever I move, I fully research my area & the services available that will play a role in my life. If transit is one of them, that is one of the first things I look into.

These plans were not announced with 1 week’s notice as common sense should tell you it is impossible to setup such complex plans that quickly. These plans have been openly announced since 2007! I should know as I have written extensive entries about them including the initial announcement as seen here.

Reading that e-mail reminded me of someone I used to know. For her sake I will not say her name but the story went a little something like this. She was your typical cliche hipster type who lived in the suburbs but just had to live in the trendy neighborhood of Williamsburg.

She & a friend find a place in the south side of Williamsburg near the J Train, M Train, & Z Train. At first she is extremely happy about being in the neighborhood of her dreams. However at one point we are having a conversation & she starts to complain about the subway.

I asked her what is wrong & her complaint was it was such a long walk to the Bedford Ave L Train station. I politely educated her that she has no business complaining. If you know anything about that area, you understand the desire of people to live by there. For those who don’t, it is an unwritten rule that the best part of Willamsburg is the north side & the Bedford Ave stop is smack in the middle of all the action.

I stressed to her that if it was so important for you to live by the stop, why did you not research the area & determine a cutoff point as to how far you were willing to live from the station. Now some might say, maybe she could not find anything. However that was not the case as she admitted they took it because it was listed as being in Williamsburg & that they never looked to see how far it was from the station.

When I found this out, I told her to just stop complaining to me as I did not want to hear anymore of such outright stupidity. It is completely inexcusable for them to have been in that situation & the same goes for people who have moved into the neighborhoods affected by this project since it was first announced.

With that in mind, I am not saying the MTA is completely clear of blame. They clearly should have put up notices about this sooner. While the work has been known for a few years now & have been reported in various media type outlets including this blog, it still is their responsibility to inform the public as best they can & take it from there. This is something the MTA needs to fix on their end.

In the end, the MTA needs to shore up their communication efforts & riders need to stop being so self absorbed & pay attention to things happening in their own backyard. Also enough with the b.s. complaints about it taking 20-30 extra minutes as a closer stop for you to access the service you need is not that far away. Next time pay attention to your local happenings even if it is not the “trendy” thing to do.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Service Diversions 01-03-11

Posted by
on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:01 am

I have just updated the Service Diversions page by removing all of the weekend work that was scheduled to wrap up until a minute ago. The upcoming week’s diversions are moved to the front followed by any known work beyond that period. Also remember that today is the first full work regular workday since fares went up across all divisions of the MTA.

I will update the diversions throughout the week as work gets completed albeit with no entry about it. The next full update will be either Wednesday or Thursday when I receive the scheduled diversions for the upcoming weekend from the MTA. Print out the diversions before heading out or use your internet capable hand held device to access Transit Blogger’s mobile site. Have a great week!

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Bx4A & Bx24 Debuts Today

Posted by
on January 2nd, 2011 at 6:23 am

This past October, a brief announcement of bus changes including new routes in Brooklyn & the Bronx by the MTA went highly uncovered. In the brief entry I posted, one of the key changes was the introduction of the Bx4A & Bx24.

Fast forward to today when in a few hours, the Bx4A & Bx24 will be making their debut. The Bx4A will replace the discontinued Bx14 in the Parkchester area by providing residents in the northern end of the community with one seat access to the 6 train. The Bx24 will replace the Bx14 in the Country Club area. After it was initially discontinued, the Bx8 served the neighborhood,

The debuts are actually receiving opposite sentiments. Let me first get into the frustration from some who feel the Bx4A is a half hearted attempt at pacifying those who prefer the restoration of the Bx14 as Patrick Rocchio of YourNabe.com has more:

After huge protests last summer at Metropolitan and Westchester avenues, the MTA finally responded to the needs of Parkchester bus riders.

In response to the removal of the Bx14 bus line along Metropolitan Avenue during a service reduction in June, Parkchester residents called on the MTA to bring back a vital bus route to the community. They protested that they need a bus linking the northern portion of the condominium community near Castle Hill and East Tremont avenues with the IRT train station at Hugh Grant Circle, Westchester Avenue and East 177th Street.

Councilman Jimmy Vacca, chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, said that he believed that the whole situation could have been resolved through a complete restoration of the Bx14 bus service, which the MTA did not do. Instead, Vacca said that the MTA gave the residents of Parkchester and other communities affected by the loss of the Bx14 “half a loaf.”

“Again, the Parkchester bus was a compromise,” Vacca said. “The issues with transportation in Parkchester could have been solved through a complete restoration of the Bx14, which the MTA has refused to do. The MTA has gone around the Mulberry bush and have made a lot of people unhappy, and I think history will bear that out.”

Click here for the complete report.

Now the opposite sort of reaction is happening on one specific block in the Country Club section, more specifically Stadium Ave. When the MTA decided to have the Bx8 replace the Bx14 in the neighborhood, part of their plan was sending buses down Stadium Ave. Patrick once again has more in this report:

Riders of the Bx8 in Country Club and Spencer Estate will have a new mass transit link to Pelham Bay station.

Starting on Sunday, January 2, the newly added Bx24 bus will provide direct service to the communities along the same route as the discontinued Bx14 route, which was taken out of service in June. A MTA spokeswoman confirmed that the line will follow the old route, creating a loop through the community and replacing Bx8 service in Country Club. That service created a great deal of controversy because of a large number of buses running through Country Club, especially on Stadium Avenue.

Victor DePierro, a resident of Stadium Avenue, said he was pleased that the MTA came to its senses and changed the route. DePierro and his neighbors said the Bx8 ran too frequently and saw no real cost savings for the MTA.

“What was the reasoning behind taking away a bus route with less frequent stops to save money and then have it replaced with a bus that came at least every 15 minutes, and was 90% empty?” DePierro said.

“We don’t want to make it sound like we are better than other blocks, but when we bought these houses, there was no bus stops in front. We are happy to see the bus being taken away from Stadium Avenue. Councilman Vacca and the MTA took a good look at it, and realized that something needed to be changed, and we are grateful to both.”

Click here for the complete report.

As I opined last year when the Bx14 was eliminated, it made sense for the route to be cut due to the overall lack of ridership. In a day & age where the agency has to properly cut costs, why run a service that most people don’t have a need for.

When the agency switched the Bx8 to serve the area, I thought it made sense as it took an active line & provided the area with the little service it seemed to needed. I personally found the typical NIMBY’s to be out of touch with reality & stuck in their own world as usual with their complaints.

The mistake I see the MTA made was having the Bx8 run that much in the area. Clearly the area has shown a lack of need for bus service so why replace a low service line with more service that served next to nobody? This brings me to these debuts which I find mostly pointless. If you cut the Bx14 due to low ridership, what is the point of creating 2 lines to completely cover what 1 line did?

I find this to be a complete waste of time & resources. The only benefit one could argue is for the seniors who live in the northern end of the Parkchester community. As someone who lived in Parkchester for 2.5 years, I can attest that the walk from passed Metropolitan Oval to the Parkchester station is not exactly short or a direct line.

However even with saying that, do we really need a new bus route just for the few who would benefit from not having to make the walk? Technically speaking, if walking the whole way was that big an issue, they could just walk to the oval & catch the Bx22 to the Castle Hill Ave 6 station. While it would add about 2-4 minutes, it at least runs more frequently & rightfully so.

Either the MTA should just restore the Bx14 & run it as frequently as it did prior & or eliminate service to the areas it served completely & call it a day. Stop wasting money on 2 new routes to replace 1 that did the same exact thing when you are crying poverty as enough is enough already.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

Posted by
on January 1st, 2011 at 12:00 am

Let me first start off by wishing every single reader a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Many things happened in 2010 but I do not want to be typical & write out a list of the many events of the year. Instead, I would like to take this time to thank the thousands of you who stopped by to this site everyday. 2010 was a banner year in terms of traffic to the site.

I tried my best to bring a fair & balanced look at all things regarding mass transit in our region while providing much important information for your commutes. In 2011, I promise to try my best to bring even more information & commentary with less breaks of time without posts. Once again, thanks for your support from the bottom of my hear.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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