Gov. Patterson Promises Progress On Moynihan Station
For the last number of years, our local officials & many other transit advocates have been pushing for the creation of the Moynihan Station. The station would serve as the new & highly improved home of the Amtrak, Long Island Rail Road, & New Jersey Transit. Unfortunately due to many different circumstances including the never ending feud between the three commuter rail roads, not much progress has been made. However if New York Governor David Patterson has his way, the hub will serve as the gateway to Midtown Manhattan. Douglas Feiden of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
You might enjoy reading these related entries:Long-stalled plans to replace gloomy Penn Station with a handsome new transit hub were back on track Friday after Gov. Paterson said the Port Authority should take over the project.
Noting that three governors had tried to build a transportation mecca named for the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Paterson pledged he would succeed where his predecessors had failed.
“We will make Moynihan Station the gateway to New York and the engine that revitalizes midtown Manhattan,” he boasted at a New York Building Congress luncheon.
“We’re going to respond to this challenge – and do you know why we’re going to respond? There’s a new sheriff in town.”
Paterson’s call to advance the $3 billion hub included a threat to pull the plug if the Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, Amtrak and other governmental agencies don’t meet certain conditions.
The governor’s demands included building additional train tracks and platforms to expand rail capacity, revitalizing the surrounding neighborhood, building a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River and forcing three feuding railroads to unify some operations.
Amtrak, all but broke and refusing to relocate its inter-city rail service from Penn Station into the landmark Farley Post Office across the street, would also have to come on board, Paterson insisted.
Click here for the complete report.
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MTA Adds Extra Buses & Trains In The Bronx
Usually when a local leader cries out to the MTA for something whether it be much needed repairs or extra service, they are left waiting for a long time before any sort of resolution is reached. However in the North Bronx, the time period for a solution was faster than they could have ever expected. Megan James of The Riverdale Press has the story:
Sometimes you get what you wished for.
A month after Community Board 8 traffic and transportation chairman Anthony Cassino wrote a letter urging MTA New York City Transit to do something about the chronic congestion of buses and trains at and around West 231st Street, the agency wrote back with a solution.
Starting this month, in an effort to stem the overcrowding of buses on the Bx7 route during rush hours, an additional four northbound and three southbound trips will be added to the route. MTA has also put in a request with the city Department of Transportation to lengthen the bus stop at the northwest corner of West 231st Street, stretching west down Broadway, by 100 feet.
“Lengthening the bus stop area is necessary because the buses get backed up — the 20, the 10, the 7, the 1 — you can’t even sit down,” Mr. Cassino said.
MTA also offered a solution to improve the flow of No. 1 subway trains in and out of the Van Cortlandt Park/ 242nd Street subway stop. The trouble there, MTA believes, is that some trains are turned around and taken to a “lay-up” yard at West 240th Street, where they are cleaned and stored for the night. They are then taken back up to the 242nd Street stop to go into service again.
With arriving and lay-up trains at times occupying both the northbound and southbound tracks, trains headed for the West 242nd Street stop are forced to wait outside the terminal until one track clears, the MTA explained in its letter to Mr. Cassino.
To clear up the tracks, the MTA in late July placed seven additional lay-up trains during the morning rush hour, and three additional lay-up trains during the evening rush hour, into passenger service at the West 238th Street stop.
Mr. Cassino was thrilled by the MTA’s swift response.
Click here for the complete story.
Now only if all solutions could be that easy & come that quickly…..
xoxo Transit Blogger
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MTA Staffers Continue To Lose Perks
Over the last few months it has been the same stories in the news when it comes to the MTA. The biggest story by far has been the sorry state of finances at the agency & how they are looking at any & every way to cut costs. So to no one’s surprise, news has come out that the MTA has ordered 59 staffers to return take-home cars as part of cost cutting initiatives. New York Daily News transit reporter Pete Donohue has more in this report:
At least 59 MTA staffers are being stripped of their take-home cars in a series of cost-cutting moves underway at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Daily News has learned.
“In addition to cutting 6% of costs over four years, we’ve taken immediate steps to tighten our belts and will continue to pursue a host of cost-cutting initiatives,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.
Several senior staffers at one MTA division – including a six-figure vice president – already have had to return authority-owned sedans they had been granted to use on-duty and for their commutes.
The Daily News reported this summer that 60 Bridges and Tunnels workers were given take-home cars.
Other authority divisions are working on similar recalls. Each has at least determined how many employees will have to give up take-home cars, the MTA said.
Facing huge operating budget gaps in 2009 and beyond, MTA CEO Elliot Sander last year directed agency heads to cut expenses by 1.5% a year for four consecutive years.
In July, Sander directed agency presidents to find additional savings through such actions as delaying planned hirings by two months, canceling most out-of-town travel and slashing the total mileage racked up by all vehicles not used for passengers.
Click here for the complete report.
I don’t have much to say besides the obvious. I support this move as any extra money that can legitimately be saved while not hurting infrastructure or service should be implemented immediately.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Sharp Eyed Motorman Saves The Day
There are many thankless jobs in NYC that do not get the recognition they deserve. One of those jobs happens to be a motorman for the MTA’s NYC Subway. The job is held my thousands who have thousands of lives in their hand every single day with the sole purpose of getting them from “Point A” to “Point B”. While these workers enjoy their job, they try to avoid the nightmare scenario that can play out at a moment’s notice & at any place. The scenario is of running over someone on the tracks, a scenario that can haunt them for the rest of their lives & sadly has done just that to many.
Most times when a motorman sees someone on the trackbed, it is usually next to impossible to stop the train in time to prevent the person from getting run over. When they do run over them, the result is usually a body bag coming into play as we had another number to the tally. Thankfully this past Friday we did not add another number to the tally & it is all due to a sharp eyed motorman who stopped his train on time to spare another man’s life. James Queally and Jonathan Lemire of the New York Daily News have the happy story:
Subway motorman Eugene Hart did two things when he spotted a man on the tracks Friday morning.
He slammed on the brakes. And he started to pray.
“It seemed like I had a chance not to hit him,” Hart told the Daily News. “I kept saying, ‘Please don’t, please don’t.'”
His prayer was answered.
The 370-ton train came to a screeching halt just a few feet short of where diabetic straphanger William Meyer had collapsed onto the tracks at the Herald Square station.
Peering down from his cab in the front car, Hart couldn’t tell that at first.
Seconds felt like hours as he tried to determine whether the well-dressed man wound up under his downtown V train.
“I’m searching the train…I’m searching the tracks,” said Hart, who has been an MTA motorman for 20 years. “I see the blood, but I don’t see the guy.”
Click here for the complete story.
Let me take this moment to congratulate MTA Motormen Eugene Hart for his quick thinking & reflexes that helped save Mr. Meyer’s life. Transit Blogger salutes you!
xoxo Transit Blogger
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Gap Incidents Could Be Reported To The Federal Government
Gap incidents have been a nightmare for the Long Island Rail Road for many years. The nightmare’s intensity picked up in 2006 after the death of 18 year old Natalie Smead at the Woodside LIRR station. The Newsday launched an investigation into gap incidents after her death & have continued to follow the issue closely all this time. So no surprise they were the first to share the news of a possible change in federal policy. If a proposal takes effect, all 21 commuter railroads in the U.S. would have to report gap accidents to the Federal Railroad Administration. Jennifer Maloney has more in this report:
Commuter railroads across the country would have to report accidents in the gap — the space between the train and the station platform — to the Federal Railroad Administration under a proposed rule released Tuesday.
The proposal, which could be adopted next year and is in a public comment period until Nov. 10, would allow the railroad administration to monitor gap injuries and take steps to reduce them, the agency said.
A Newsday investigation spurred by the 2006 death of Natalie Smead, 18, at the Woodside Long Island Rail Road station found that the LIRR, its parent agency, and state and federal oversight officials had done little to address a problem that had injured hundreds of riders. Smead slipped through a gap, crawled under a platform and was struck by an oncoming train.
Although the railroad administration requires the country’s 21 commuter railroads to report bee stings and spider bites, it has never tracked accidents in which passengers slip into the gap.
Click here for the entire report.
I applaud Newsday for continuing their excellent work in tracking the progress of gap accidents & measures being taken to prevent them. However with that out of the way, I must ask the question. How can the federal government require commuter railroads to report bee stings & spider bites but not gap accidents? Call me crazy but wouldn’t common sense say that gap accidents are a more serious issue that could take away lives as compared to a bee sting or spider bite? I am absolutely floored at how ridiculous that sounds when I reread it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as the government has made a career out of ridiculous actions.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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