Today’s Headlines

  • Cuomo’s Summer Penn Station Plan: Punish Amtrak, Cut LIRR Fares (News, AMNY, NY1)
  • Daily News All in on Moynihan Station; Gov Admits “a Train Hall Is Only as Good as the Tracks” (Politico)
  • Good Morning! Welcome to Your Daily Hell of Subway Commuting (WNBC)
  • Ben Kabak Tells Slate Why the Subways Are a Mess; Village Voice Lists 5 Ways to Fix Them
  • Riders Frustrated With Bad Service Are Taking It Out on Transit Workers (NYT)
  • Big Rig Driver Kills Man Crossing Flatlands Ave in Canarsie (News)
  • Broad Authorization for Design-Build May Not Make It Out of the Albany Swamp This Session (NYT)
  • More on Gianaris’s Bill to Tax the Rich to Fund Transit (AMNY)
  • F Train Fiasco Prompts MTA to Switch From Pre-Recorded to Live Service Announcements (DNA, AMNY)
  • Queens CB 6 Is Going to Fight a Route Change to the Q23 (DNA)
  • Sincere Effort to Keep Cars Off an UES Block, or Stealth Campaign to Boot a Bike Lane and Citi Bike Station? (DNA)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Larry Littlefield

    A broad design-build bill that excludes the City of New York, which would continue to pay more for contractors who commute in from the suburbs by car and construction executives and workers retired to Florida with rich but underfunded multi-employer pension plans.

    Meanwhile, will there be an extra fare increase for the subway during the L train shutdown to make up for revenues lost due to the LIRR fare cut? Or just service cuts on New York City subways and buses?

    Just some examples of the consequences of New York City residents not having any representatives in the state legislature. With those representatives actually representing special interests, often from the suburbs, instead.

    It isn’t just mass transit.

    https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/medicaid-the-rest-of-new-york-state-re-declares-war-on-new-york-city/

  • Larry Littlefield

    “We know your subway system is bad, we know your train system is bad. To really fix it we have to take lines out of service for extended periods of time.”

    Thus bicycles. I predicted this long ago. Eventually the MTA will be so deep in debt and will stop maintaining the system, and only start repairs when service becomes so unreliable and unsafe that a full shutdown is required. And then those people who can’t bicycle all the way to their destination will have to at least do so to another subway line, or move out of the metro area (or move their business out).

    https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/preparing-for-institutional-collapse/

    https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/repost-how-then-shall-we-live-transportation-in-the-wake-of-generation-greed/

    When I said this most people thought I was a doom and gloom nut, but it was simple arithmetic. And if you think the solution is a shift of resources to transportation from other things, understand that the big picture is what was done to transportation is what was done to EVERYTHING by Generation Greed.

  • Vooch

    the car free block on 91st should be a model for many blocks. We can start with the streets in front of schools

  • Komanoff

    Re DnaInfo (last story): “Last fall, the community petitioned the DOT to remove a Citi Bike station it installed closer to Second Avenue, saying that it would bring cyclists speeding the wrong way to the foot of the hill where the station sits.”

    Too bad the reporter couldn’t rouse herself to interview the local anti-bike nabob from her Sept 2016 story or get stats on bike-ped collisions or otherwise do real reporting to see if any of those neighborhood “fears” ever materialized.

  • Larry Littlefield

    And if that one example isn’t news by itself, perhaps a whole expose on similar lies put out by NIMBYs, anti-bike nabobs and others might do the trick.

    “You Were Lied to, And We Published It.”

    Ah well, perhaps Streetsblog could do it.

  • Larry Littlefield

    Not to dominate the discussion, but here is my pro-worker though perhaps anti-union and politician take on worker abuse.

    Public services are going to become a worse and worse deal, with higher fees and taxes and worse service, because of what was done in the past. Unions and past workers, to the extent that retroactive pension increases contributed to the problem, and deserve some of the blame, a share that varies from place to place and public service to public service.

    Most current and all recently hired workers do not deserve some of the blame — they are on the wrong side of the “screw the newbie, flee to Florida” contract and pension cycle with the rest of the serfs, and are left to work in a lousy environment Generation Greed is leaving behind. And yet the ignorant public will blame them. Which is just fine with the unions and politicians.

    What has to happen, at all levels of government, is for taxes, fares, tolls, other fees to be cut to a level that reflects the amount of money going to actual public services and benefits right now. With all the costs from the past — pension underfunding, debts, catch up to to past inadequate infrastructure maintenance — assessed in a separate surcharge everyone can see. So they are reminded over and over how much they are paying with nothing in between, with current workers not getting it.

    As in you put $60 in the Metrocard machine, and you get at $30 Metrocard and pay a $30 “Generation Greed surcharge.”

    I don’t think the MTA politicos in Albany and on the MTA Board will want to go for it. But perhaps eventually the TWU will drop out of the group CYA on what was done in the past to be fair to its own (involuntarily) dues paying members.

  • Toddster

    I’d argue current union workers still bear some the blame – it’s largely union pressure that makes us have two employees per train, when the rest of the world operates trains with one person…or none. That’s a huge cost reduction right there that current employees won’t let happen. Not to mention the increased utility we could receive from station agents if the union allowed them to leave their booths.

  • Larry Littlefield

    True. But you have to add up the $ of damage and apportion the blame proportionately. Debt and contractors (and their pensions) are number one for NYCT. Pension increases for NYC teachers, high non-instructional staffing for schools in the rest of the state. Pensions and overstaffing for police.

    If you want to concern yourself with worker abuses, look to the LIRR.

  • Joe R.

    A possible situation where entire subway lines are taken out of service for long periods is one reason I’ve repeatedly pushed the concept of bicycle highways where one can ride nonstop, free of cars or pedestrians. Even if they must be built on viaducts it would be worthwhile. With such thoroughfares it becomes eminently practical for many to ride the distances they might currently travel by subway. Without them, it really isn’t given how slow and stressful riding on city streets during peak times is. Even if it’s not practical to ride all the way, a bicycle highway makes the trip to a running subway line much quicker.

  • Larry Littlefield

    Maybe, but with what money?

    Too bad they tore down the old els instead of converting them into what you describe.