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MTA Debuts New Lost & Found Feature

Posted by
on February 26th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

You know the story, one day you are riding the bus or subway & you leave a valuable behind. The initial thought is to consider it gone forever although for the sake of hoping for the best, you check with the MTA’s lost & found. Well the MTA hopes to help out people in these situations with a new feature on their website. The new feature would enable you to try & track down lost items through the site. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News had more in this very brief report:

Bus and subway riders can now try to track down lost property via the MTA’s Web site.

A new feature allows riders to describe an item they believe they left behind in the system and then be notified by e-mail if there is a potential match at NYC Transit’s Lost Property Unit, located in the Penn Station subway complex.

Click here for the complete report.

I applaud the MTA for adding this new feature. This should hopefully help riders find their lost items quickly. I hope people take advantage of this if they have to go through the unfortunate task of tracking down something they lost.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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MTA Chairman’s Company Loses Shopping Mall

Posted by
on February 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

At the beginning of 2008, a rerouting of a Queens bus made bigger news than one would have anticipated. This was the case as the reroute benefited MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger. The reroute was for the Q25 which had it now passing by the “Shops at Atlas Park”. The mall & the property it sat on was owned by ATCO Properties which featured Dale as a co-owner & President.

At first I thought it was not a big deal as reroutes that benefit riders should be looked at as a good thing. However later in the year Councilman John Liu, who heads the council transportation committee accused the MTA of speeding up the approval process of the rerouting. This is when I felt that nepotism was clearly in the air.

Now lets fast forward to February 2009 where news came out that ATCO Properties’ the “Shops at Atlas Park” will be taken over by the two banks who gave the company a $128 million dollar mortgage. William Neuman of the New York Times has more in this report:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been struggling with the bad economy, and now its chairman, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, is struggling, too.

Lenders are foreclosing on a Queens shopping mall developed and owned by his company, Atco Properties and Management, Mr. Hemmerdinger said on Tuesday.

“The world is shrinking in terms of retail sales, and we got caught in the shrinking,” he said.

He declined to say how much his company had invested in the property, the Shops at Atlas Park, which has a $128 million mortgage with two French banks, Calyon and Société Générale. He said the two banks were in the process of taking over the property, which is in the Glendale neighborhood.

In dropping its interest in the mall, the company is also giving up a large portion of a real estate property that the family has owned since the 1920s. The property was managed as an industrial park for many years, but when manufacturing declined, the family decided to build the shopping mall.

Click here for the complete report.

I am curious about one thing. Will the MTA consider eliminating the reroute of the Q25 so it no longer benefits people traveling there? If they were smart, they would not as that would just really add fuel to the claim of nepotism.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Seniors Say Don’t Cut Our B25

Posted by
on February 26th, 2009 at 5:38 pm

Since last November, many elected officials, transit advocates & riders have echoed the same sentiment about not cutting service. So it came as no surprised earlier this month when Brooklyn seniors urged the MTA not to cut the B25 which they see as their transportation lifeline. Erin Durkin of the New York Daily News has more in this report:

Plans to ax a key bus line in East New York would leave thousands of elderly residents stranded – and scrambling for a way to get to doctors’ appointments, shopping, church or the bank.

The B25, which runs from downtown Brooklyn to Broadway Junction, is one of six borough bus lines set to be eliminated unless the MTA gets a massive infusion of funds from the state.

Elderly riders rely on the bus to get downtown because there’s no escalator leading to the A train at the Broadway Junction subway station.

“I’m old and arthritic,” said Edith Stanley, 77, who takes the B25 to church every Sunday and to go shopping downtown. “I can’t go up or down those steps with these legs. Leave the buses alone. We really need them.”

Chris Banks, executive director of East New York United Concerned Citizens, estimated 2,000 to 3,000 seniors in Brownsville and East New York depend on the B25.

“We don’t want the MTA to balance the budget on the backs of the less fortunate or the elderly,” he said.

Click here for the complete report.

I will start this by saying the B25 clearly has a decent senior ridership. However in the grand scheme of things, the line is covered end to end by multiple subway lines. If push came to shove, would it really be a wise decision for the MTA to continue to run this route? Don’t get me wrong, the last thing I want are the “draconian” service cuts becoming a reality. However each line’s usefulness & ridership patterns have to closely be looked at if we indeed have to face the “doomsday scenario.”

I can understand the riders fear of losing the B25 as they use it to get to their destinations. However they as most others are focusing their anger & frustration towards the wrong people. The people they should really speak out against are the elected officials who continue to snub mass transit of the funding it so desperately needs & deserves.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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MTA Extends Hudson Rail Yards Deal

Posted by
on February 26th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

This past November, I blogged about how the $1 billion dollar Hudson Rail Yards deal between the MTA & Related Companies/Goldman Sachs faced a delay. Now a few short months later the delay has become official as both sides agreed to hold off the closing for up to one year (01/31/10). The MTA issued a statement about the extension via e-mail:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today finalized an agreement with Related Companies/Goldman Sachs to extend the partnership’s period of “conditional designation” as developer of the MTA’s East and West Side Rail Yards for up to an additional year. Due to the economic downturn and collapse of traditional commercial lending, the parties were unable to reach final contractual terms by January 31, the end of the existing designation period.

Nonetheless, the MTA and Related/Goldman remain fully committed both to the Eastern Rail Yard and Western Rail Yard projects and the business terms of the deal. The agreement provides the MTA with a non-refundable payment of $8.6 million in exchange for the extension (up to half of which may be used to offset expenses incurred by MTA, the City and the developer regarding, principally, the continuation of the zoning and ULURP process).

In addition, the MTA and Related/Goldman agreed on a set of revised provisions to guide our contractual negotiations during the extended designation period. While the extension is up to a year, both parties are committed to moving forward as quickly as possible, and the planning process continues to advance.

Elliot G. Sander, Executive Director and CEO of the MTA said, “Today’s agreement acknowledges current economic realities without derailing our partnership on this important site for New York’s future. The development team made their commitment to the project clear and this new understanding keeps us on the path to obtain the funding critically needed for the MTA’s current capital plan.”

Stephen M. Ross, Chairman and CEO of Related Companies said, “The development of Hudson Yards is critical to the future of New York. Today’s agreement creates the flexibility needed in light of current market conditions, while ensuring that we can continue to collectively move forward with the necessary planning approvals and pre-construction logistics. When the markets rebound and with zoning in place, New York City will be poised to build a vibrant new mixed-use community at the rail yards.”

This extension comes as no surprise considering the state of our economy. While the MTA could really use the infusion of cash from this deal being done, getting a penalty payment is better than nothing. Lets hope the two sides can close this deal in the coming months.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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1

MTA To Use Stimulus Cash On Fulton Transit Center

Posted by
on February 26th, 2009 at 5:36 pm

Late last year, the prospects of a completed anytime soon Fulton Transit Center seemed bleak. The MTA’s finances were spiraling out of control on all fronts & major capital projects such as this lacked a clear idea of where more funding for them would come from. Now a little over month later, the question of where funding for completing the Fulton Transit Center would come from has been answered in the form of stimulus package cash. The MTA plans on using $497 million of federal stimulus money towards the completion of the Fulton Transit Center. C.J. Huges of the New York Times has more in this report:

The Fulton Street subway station might be a good spot for M.C. Escher to set up an easel, if the surrealist artist were still alive and sketching.

Ramps double back on themselves. Stairs twist down around corners. Passengers weave through a maze where there is no clear way forward.

“I come here every two weeks, and every time I get lost,” Khana Fraser, 34, a student from Far Rockaway, Queens, said as she paced a ramp near the A train platform, trying to find a street-side exit.

And if locals have problems decoding the station’s perplexing U-turn arrows — are they telling passengers on the way to another subway connection to make a left, or to do an about-face? — imagine how much like hieroglyphics they seem to tourists.

But the struggles with the layout quirks of this station, a bottleneck of nine subway lines, may soon cease. On Thursday, the executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that $497 million in federal stimulus money is expected to go toward renovating the station, a project that began in 2005 and stalled as it ran over budget.

With the federal money, the transportation authority will put up a new glass station on the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, which is now a fenced-in dirt lot, according to Elliot G. Sander, the agency’s executive director.

The authority will also go ahead with a plan to build a bypass hallway in the area where the A and C lines stop, said Kevin Ortiz, an authority spokesman.

Click here for the complete report.

As I stated on Christmas Eve, I support the Fulton Transit Center as it is a worthwhile project that would benefit many riders. However I also said that as important as this project is, I find other projects such as the Second Avenue Subway to be of more importance. I could even make the case that the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Third Rail project is more important. So with saying that, it is obvious that I am disappointed to hear that so much stimulus package money would be used for the Fulton Transit Center.

I sincerely hope the MTA considers using some of the money towards the Second Avenue Subway & the LIRR Third Rail Project. If I could only choose one of those projects, I would choose the Second Avenue Subway since it is so vital to the NYC Subway system as well as being much further along.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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