Editorial: Save Mass Transit Riders
In today’s print edition of the New York Daily News, an editorial urged lawmakers to protect mass transit riders from disastrous fare hikes & service cuts. Lets take a look at a sample of the editorial:
Confronting the certainty of astronomical fare hikes and disastrous transit cuts, city lawmakers must act in the interests of the millions of people who ride the subways, buses and commuter lines every day.
This should be a no-brainer. There should not be a moment’s doubt that the Legislature will provide the Metropolitan Transportation Authority with the funding necessary to maintain and expand service while minimizing the hit on riders’ wallets.
But it is far from certain Albany will come through for the huge population that relies on mass transportation because so many politicians dread asking a far tinier number of drivers to pay their fair share.
There are two components to the rescue-the-riders plan that is being bruited about behind closed doors in the capital.
To this point, no one has advanced better, workable ideas for raising enough money to prevent the city’s lifeblood from deteriorating. Barring a flash of genius, tolls are unavoidable under these dire circumstances.
Lawmakers must summon the courage to do right for mass transit-using constituents – who every day make 8 million trips on subways, buses and trains, a number that dwarfs the 100,000 vehicles crossing the bridges.
Click here for the complete editorial.
As one would expect, most of the responses left for the editorial are beyond ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I do not agree with a lot of the Ravitch Commission’s proposals. However I know for the better of our transit infrastructure & system, we need some if not all of those proposals to go through. So even though most of the ideas are poorly thought out (mainly the corporate tax), the positives that they would bring have to trump the negatives for the greater good.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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CBTC Debuts On The L
Go up to a regular L train rider & ask them to express their feelings on the service diversions they have experienced over the last few years. Many if not all of them will start to vent about how annoying & frustrating it was. However the payoff for most of those diversions came Tuesday morning when CBTC debuted on the L. Matthew Lysiak & Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News have more in this report:
Robotrain passed its biggest test yet early Tuesday with a computerized system driving trains for about five hours on the L line, NYC Transit said.
“It did very well for the first night,” NYC Transit spokesman Charles Seaton said. “It operated as designed.”
Seven trains carried passengers along the Manhattan-Brooklyn line between 12:30a.m. and 5:30 a.m.
It was a smooth ride, with the computer doing the braking and accelerating instead of a motorman.
The $326 million upgrade replaces an antiquated signals and communications network that required trains be spaced farther apart as they moved though different zones on the line.
Computerization should allow trains to run closer together, enabling NYC Transit to provide more frequent service, officials said.
With just two tracks, there are limits to how many trains can be squeezed together during peak hours, but an eight-car train can carry about 1,500 riders, officials said.
Click here for the complete report.
Congratulations on finally getting this going. I am not going to get into the whole debate about it as CBTC has its lovers & haters within the transit community. I will say one thing though, I question the legitimacy of just how many trains can be added to the schedule. I find it hard to believe there will be any additions. I feel it is misleading for the prospects of that to even be out there.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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MTA To Award Culver Viaduct Contract
Well F & G riders continue to get it from all sides when it comes to the Culver Viaduct project. The news first started in October 2007 when the MTA announced that the Smith-9th Streets station will be closed up to 1 year due to needed repairs on the crumbling Culver Viaduct, which stretches over the Gowanus Canal. The news got worse almost a year to the day when word came out that the repairs would not only be pushed back but cost more.
The latest news is now that the MTA will award a $179 million contract to rebuild the Culver Viaduct. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
Subway riders on the F and G lines are in for a long, bumpy ride as a major construction project forces trains to skip stations – and straphangers to take shuttle buses.
The MTA board today is expected to award a $179 million contract to rebuild the Culver Viaduct, a crumbling concrete and steel structure above local streets and the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens.
But for about four months at the beginning of 2011, F trains will skip Smith-Ninth Sts. and only northbound G service will be available there. Starting around the summer of that year, the station will be completely closed – for about nine months, according to the agency.
During one period of the project, only northbound trains will be stopping at 15thSt.-Prospect Park and Fort Hamilton Parkway. During another, only southbound trains will stop there. When the local tracks are not able to be used, trains will stop at the nearby Bergen and Carroll Sts. stations.
The first impact, Cafiero said, would be a benefit. Starting this fall, the G train’s route will be extended deeper into Brooklyn to Church Ave.
In a much-needed glimmer of good news for the MTA, the contract to be approved by the board is $62.5 million less than originally estimated. That’s because more contractors are looking for work, increasing competition and lowering the price.
“This is one of the more encouraging things we’ve had turn up in procurement in quite some while,” NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said.
I feel the pain of the riders here as this will be an inconvenience. However I also understand that for the better of these same riders & the overall infrastructure, the work is vital & must be done. The sooner they can get started, the sooner it will finish. If it really turns out to cost them less that originally anticipated, the better. The MTA could sure use financial breaks regardless of where they come from.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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MTA To Cutback On Weekend Subway Service
Over the last few months, the main topics of this blog have been transit financing here, doomsday scenario there & everything else in between. Don’t expect this to change with the March 25th date looming so dangerously close. So with that in mind, what would an entry on here be like without some bad news. The MTA has announced that whether or not they get financial help from Albany, riders will be hit with cutbacks on weekend subway service. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
The MTA will cut weekend subway service even if it gets a state bailout, officials said Monday.
NYC Transit, the bus and subway division, revealed Monday that gaps between weekend trains on 10 lines will increase from eight minutes or nine minutes to 10 minutes this June – bailout or no bailout.
Some 2 million riders use the affected lines: the A, D, E, F, G, J, M, N, Q and R. The agency says that will save $4.4 million a year.
NYC Transit President Howard Roberts said the adjustment wasn’t triggered by the need to save money but to better manage train traffic through the maze of construction.
“This is something we would have done anyway,” he said.
Andrew Albert, a nonvoting MTA board member, scoffed at that notion and blasted the change. “This is a major service cut for folks,” Albert said. “I think this is a terrible, terrible move.”
NYC Transit said on four lines the 10-minute schedule, if adhered to, would be an improvement to what riders now see because of construction-related woes. Also, the C train, now regularly suspended on weekends, would be able to run.
Click here for the complete report.
Sigh……. the constant barrage of bad news can really wear one out after awhile. The reality is none of this comes as a surprise. We have had to put up with below average weekend service for years. The only reason I did not get as frustrated with it was because most of it was due to construction. I understand that the overnight hours & weekends are the best time to get work done. However knowing that these cuts will be to save money in a way as well just feels like a slap in the face.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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MTA Deficit Could Rise By $650 Million
As the deadline draws closer to the MTA possibly enacting the doomsday scenario, & they try to convince Albany for the money they need, news comes out that their deficit could rise by $650 million. William Neuman of the New York Times has more in this report:
Plummeting tax and fare revenues that have been depressed further by the ailing economy could increase the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget deficit this year by $650 million, according to a new estimate made public on Monday. If the doomsday forecast is borne out, the authority’s deficit this year could grow to nearly $2 billion.
The authority has already proposed a steep increase in fares and deep service cuts if it does not get a state bailout. But if its finances worsen significantly, it could be forced to take even more drastic measures. “This is obviously breathtaking,” Gary Dellaverson, the authority’s chief financial officer, said as he presented the projections to a meeting of the authority board’s finance committee.
Mr. Dellaverson said that revenue from taxes on mortgages and real estate transactions was $71.5 million so far this year, slightly less than half of what the authority had predicted it would receive when it made what it thought was a conservative forecast late last year.
That forecast called for the authority to receive $880 million in real estate tax revenue in 2009. But Mr. Dellaverson said that if the trend continued, the authority could receive $446 million less than predicted.
Mr. Dellaverson cautioned that the figures he was presenting did not rise to the level of a formal budget forecast.
But the possibilities he sketched were grim enough.
They included a $123 million decline in fare and toll revenue, below what was budgeted. And he said that state taxes receipts that go to the authority, including a sales tax and a corporate income tax, could be $82 million less than forecast.
“The scary number is when you add them all up,” Mr. Dellaverson said.
That would put the total revenue decline for the year at about $650 million below what was in the austerity budget passed by the board in December.
That budget was meant to fill a predicted $1.2 billion gap, with a series of drastic financial measures, including a 23 percent increase in fare and toll revenues starting in June, deep service cuts and other budget cutbacks. (If the new estimate becomes reality, it would bring the deficit this year to more than $1.8 billion.)
Click here for the complete report.
I sincerely hope Albany is finding out about this. These kind of details are the ones I would hammer into the mind of our officials. If you don’t do the right thing, our transit infrastructure & system will come crashing down. I am not one for doom & gloom but lets be real here. The system is in shambles yet ridership continues to grow. When our economy gets better, it will bring even more people back into the region adding even more to ridership totals.
The system is at its breaking point & seriously needs to be funded. While there are some in the minority who feel the MTA should come crashing down, we can’t afford to have that happen. Yes, they have made mistakes & engaged in some shady bookkeeping. However for the better of the millions who use the system daily, we can’t have them come crashing down leaving us with the worst possible service imaginable. Our transit system is a lifeline & needs to be treated as such by our “so called” leaders.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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