2

Funeral Arrangements Announced For Edwin Thomas

Posted by
on December 5th, 2008 at 5:23 pm

Just a few minutes ago, the MTA sent out word that funeral arrangements for slain MTA New York City Transit bus operator Edwin Thomas have been made. For those wishing to stop by & pay respects, here are the details:

The following funeral arrangements have been announced for slain Bus Operator Edwin Thomas.

WAKE: Sunday, December 7, 2008, from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. *
Andre Torregrossa & Sons, 2265 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

FUNERAL: Monday, December 8, 2008 at 11:00 a.m.
Sacred Heart Church, 115-50 221 Street, Cambria Heights, New York.

INTERMENT: Nassau Knolls Cemetery, Port Washington, Long Island.

* TWU Local 100 members are expected to walk over to the location en masse from the Flatbush Bus Depot, which is nearby.

xoxo Transit Blogger

You might enjoy reading these related entries:
Death
0

The R Is The Next Line To Be Graded

Posted by
on December 4th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

MTA’s New York City Transit sent out a press release via e-mail within the last hour to announce that the R Train will be the next line graded in the 2008 Rider Report Cards. Here are the complete details:

In our continuing effort to solicit feedback from our customers, MTA New York City Transit is again distributing Rider Report Cards throughout the system. Riders on the R are next in line of NYC Transit’s over five million daily subway customers asked to rate the progress of their line since the initial round of report cards was distributed in July 2007.

The report cards are being distributed to riders during the morning rush hours from Monday, December 8th through Thursday, December 11th. The cards will be handed out at several different stations along the line each day over all four days. Grades will be used to identify rider preferences and to gauge how much improvement customers along the R line have noticed since last year’s report card.

Again, the Rider Report Card will ask subway riders to grade 21 specific areas of service from an A (Excellent) to an F (Unsatisfactory). Among the areas riders will grade include: car and station cleanliness, safety, security, quality of announcements, and the courtesy and helpfulness of front line customer service staff. Riders will also assign an overall grade for R service. From this list of 21 service attributes, riders are also going to be asked to rank the top three improvements they would like to see made to this line.

The Rider Report Card is once again being distributed in a mailer format, designed to be returned at no cost to the rider. Customers will also have the option of completing the survey on-line, on the MTA website at www.mta.info/nyct/index.html, where it is available in 3 languages: English, Spanish and Chinese. From the time the survey begins, riders will have two weeks to mail in their response or to complete the survey online.

Rider Report Card results are posted on line for riders to review once they have been tabulated.

Report cards are being distributed between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. at each station. The schedule for distribution of Rider Report Cards along the R line is as follows:

• Monday, December 8th – Bay Ridge-95th Street, 86th Street, 77th Street, Bay Ridge Avenue, 59th Street-4th Avenue, 53rd Street, and 45th Street.

• Tuesday, December 9th – Whitehall Street, Rector Street, City Hall, Prince Street, 8th Street-NYU, 23rd Street and 28th Street.

• Wednesday, December 10th – 49th Street, 57th Street-7th Avenue, 5th Avenue-59th Street, 36th Street and Steinway Street.

• Thursday, December 11th – 46th Street, Northern Blvd., 65th Street, Elmhurst Avenue, Grand Avenue-Newtown, Woodhaven Blvd., 63rd Drive-Rego Park and 67th Avenue.

xoxo Transit Blogger

You might enjoy reading these related entries:
Rider Report Cards
1

MTA Issues Statement On Ravitch Commission Report

Posted by
on December 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

Catching up with today’s news, the MTA issued a statement via e-mail on the Ravitch Commission Report. Here is what they had to say:

The MTA is pleased that the commission appointed by Governor Paterson and led by Richard Ravitch has identified a comprehensive plan for putting the MTA back on sound financial footing. We thank Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg and all of the commission members for their support of increased funding for the critical operating and capital needs of the transit system that powers the state’s economy.

xoxo Transit Blogger

You might enjoy reading these related entries:
Press Releases
1

Ravitch Commission Plan Is Finally Here

Posted by
on December 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Let me first apologize on two fronts. The first is for getting the date wrong in which they were going to unveil the report. This must have been a recent change as the date reference was always Friday, December 5th. The second thing is for not getting this up sooner. I have been extremely busy with some business matters. Anyhow, let me not digress any further as the long awaited day is finally upon us…..

Earlier this morning, the head of the Ravitch Commission, Richard Ravitch unveiled the commission’s rescue plan for the MTA. The proposals in the plan are supposed to help the MTA fund capital projects and operating needs over the next ten years.

Sewell Chan & William Neuman of the New York Times have more on today’s proceedings:

A state commission led by Richard Ravitch, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, presented a wide-ranging rescue plan on Thursday for the region’s subways, buses and commuter railroads that includes a new “mobility tax” on payrolls in the region; tolls on the free East River and Harlem River bridges; a much smaller fare and toll increase than the cash-strapped authority has threatened; few service reductions; and improvements in bus service.

The plan — presented in a 19-page report [pdf] — would permit automatic, inflation-adjusted fare and toll increases every two years without public hearings, ending what Mr. Ravitch called a cyclical “political circus.” The plan would allow for a state takeover of the city-owned Harlem River and East River bridges, which have historically been free to drivers. The new tolls would be collected electronically, without toll booths.

The regional mobility tax — 33 cents on every $100 of payroll — would provide $1.5 billion a year, and the tolls would produce $600 million in net revenue a year ($1 billion a year in gross revenue minus expenses), Mr. Ravitch said. The new revenue streams would help finance borrowing for a $30 billion-to-$35 billion M.T.A. capital plan for 2010 to 2014 that would help stimulate the economy while maintaining vital infrastructure.

“This is a major stimulus bill to New York State,” Mr. Ravitch said at a morning news conference at the governor’s office in Midtown Manhattan. “The number of projects being canceled and terminated as a result of inadequate financing,” he said, is “adding enormously to all the other problems this financial crisis has imposed on everybody.”

Gov. David A. Paterson and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined Mr. Ravitch for the announcement, and broadly endorsed his recommendations. Their support means that the plan now lies in the hands of the State Legislature, where support is far from certain.

Mr. Ravitch warned that there was currently “not one hard dollar” for the M.T.A.’s next five-year capital plan, which is to extend from 2010 and 2014 and could cost as much as $14 billion.

Click here for the complete article.

Click here to download or view the entire Ravitch Commission report.

I commented on some of proposals last night. As of this moment I am still tied up with a number of things. However I plan to sit down & read the entire report & provide my opinion of it to go along with my previous statements.

xoxo Transit Blogger

You might enjoy reading these related entries:
MTA Finances
6

Gov. Patterson Voices Support For Ravitch Commission Plan

Posted by
on December 4th, 2008 at 12:36 am

We are a little over a day away from the complete Ravitch Commission report being released. However over the last 7-10 days details of the proposals have been leaked from the New York Times to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s “Mobilizing The Region” blog.

For the first time the man who created the Ravitch Commission, Gov. Patterson has voiced his support for the plan which he is still reviewing. One of the main proposals which has been discussed on this blog & many others is the addition of tolls on East River crossings. Until now, no specific toll amounts were known. However tonight we all learned that the potential tolls would be $5 for cash paying customers & $4.15 for E-Z Pass users. The plan also calls for smaller tolls on Harlem River crossings.

The proposal is also there for adding a new company payroll tax which the governor supports as well. If these recommendations make it through Albany, the potential fare hike would drop back to he original forecast of 8% as well as put off “doomsday scenario service cuts & eliminations”.

William Neuman (with contributions from Kareem Fahim) of the New York Times has more in this report:

Gov. David A. Paterson said for the first time on Wednesday that he supported a financial rescue plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that includes charging tolls on bridges over the East and Harlem Rivers. The plan, he said, would substantially reduce the size of a fare increase the authority had sought.

The governor also spoke favorably about a recommendation in the plan for a tax on company payrolls in the region. The measures are aimed at helping the authority overcome a projected $1.2 billion deficit next year and a gaping multibillion-dollar hole in its long-term capital budget.

The governor said he was still reviewing the plan, but was “quite pleased with what I see so far.” “As an alternative to a fare hike,” he said, “I think it’s very viable.”

The governor said the plan would include an increase in fare revenues of 8 percent next year, scaling back a 23 percent increase that the authority had previously said it would need to offset plummeting tax revenue and enormous debt payments.

The plan also calls for a tax of one-third of 1 percent on the payrolls of companies in the region served by the authority. That would amount to about $330 for every $100,000 of payroll. Companies, not workers, would pay.

And it calls for tolls on bridges to Manhattan that are currently free. Tolls on the East River bridges would match tolls on other major crossings already managed by the authority, including the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (formerly the Triborough) and the Queens Midtown Tunnel. On those crossings, cars with E-ZPass are charged $4.15, while drivers paying in cash are charged $5. Lower tolls would be charged on the smaller Harlem River bridges.

Click here for the complete report.

Well this should be quite the report when it is fully released on Friday. I look forward to going over it completely. I said I would wait to comment on some of the leaked proposals but I will not do so any longer.

Let me first start off by saying that I would love to not see a fare hike. However I am a realist & realize that one will occur one way or another. Since riders have no way of not dealing with it, common sense would say that we would prefer an 8% increase versus the doomsday scenario of 23%.

With saying that, I am not sure if these proposals will make it through the web of elected officials who will decide their fate. The idea of tolling the East River bridges has been proposed & defeated many times before. Regardless of the financial crisis our economy is going through, I am not sure if our so called leaders would go against the grain on this specific proposal.

Lets be frank here, as far as tolling the bridges is concerned, look for many residents & elected officials to play the discrimination card. They will contend that their specific area is being discriminated with the addition of tolls on these crossings.

Lets use Staten Island drivers as an example. They will most likely express anger & frustration of potentially being hit with a two toll trip from Manhattan to Staten Island. You can bet your last dollar that local officials in the borough will say they are being discriminated against if tolls for the East River crossings become a reality.

In the New York Times piece, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was questioned. Judging by his “reiteration” of needing to see the final report, I feel it is safe to assume he will be against this specific proposal. In the end on this issue, I don’t know if it will pass. My gut tells me no as history always repeats itself with this issue regardless of the economic conditions & benefits. He seemed open to an idea of a new company payroll tax.

As far as that is concerned, I feel it is a bad idea. While the proposed amount of 1/3 of 1 percent seems low, I can envision many companies using this as an excuse to layoff workers. If they do not choose to do that, they might just relocate outside of the areas that the MTA serves. The latter scenario could have a good/bad impact depending on what state you are in.

If the state was to implement this payroll tax, other states could use this as an opportunity to encourage businesses to relocate with less overall cost to them. Our economy is in a recession that will probably last for quite awhile so don’t think for one second that companies would not jump at such an offer if it was presented by other states nearby.

Seriously who in their right mind would consider new taxes when our economy is in a steady downturn? Basic economics tell you that doing such a thing is never a good idea & that hasn’t changed. With our economy in such a downturn, we should be encouraging companies to create jobs, not give them a free pass to cut them. As I said the amount on paper sounds low but this would cost a lot more in the long run.

So we basically raise taxes during an economic downturn, CHECK!

Impact real estate prices, CHECK!

Encourage companies to either relocate, layoff employees, create less jobs, or all 3, CHECK!

So to sum it up an idea of a payroll tax is so bad it is starting to make congestion pricing look attractive to me, & we all know how I feel about that!

I am really curious to hear what other proposals the Ravitch Commission will make. I hope they have some other ideas as the chances of these proposals passing seems iffy at best.

xoxo Transit Blogger

You might enjoy reading these related entries:
MTA Finances