Today’s Headlines

  • Thanks, Cuomo: Transit Fares Rise for Fifth Time in Eight Years (AMNY, Post, News)
  • Albany Feels No Urgency to Avoid Future Fare Hikes (News)
  • The NYC Transit System in 2015: Higher Fares, Worse Service, Apathetic Government (News)
  • MTA Blames Unreliable Subway Service on High Ridership (DNA)
  • Green Taxi Driver Jumps Curb, Kills Two People at Grand Concourse Bus Stop (News, Gothamist)
  • Daily News: Driving Into Someone Who Has the Right of Way Shouldn’t Be a Crime
  • Three Dead After Off-Duty NJ Cop Drives Wrong Way on Staten Island Highway (Post)
  • The C Train and Its 50-Year-Old Cars Rattle On (WNYC)
  • DNA Covers DOT’s Underwhelming Safety Plan for 21st Street in Astoria
  • How Plans to Cut Regional Freight Truck Traffic Play at Bay Ridge CB 10 (Bklyn Paper)
  • Pols Ask for Daily Ferry Service to Gov’s Island From Brooklyn (CapNY)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Jesse

    Daily News deserves some kind of reverse Pulitzer for that editorial. It’s so poorly written and the reasoning is so terrible that it persuasively makes the opposite point it’s attempting to. And also that they are idiots.

  • Media Critic

    The majority of New Yorkers don’t drive. All New Yorkers, even those who do, are pedestrians at one time or another. Therefore, the Daily News hates New Yorkers.

  • com63

    I agree. It is rambling and incoherent to the extreme. I’m surprised it made it into print. There must be someone on the board who is the champion of this issue and everyone else doesn’t want to touch it.

    I agree with one point though. The NYPD should ticket failure to yield as much as possible. They should give out thousands of summons a day.

  • The best part is the end:

    “To cut the toll, the NYPD should ticket the hell out of drivers who commit the common sin of failing to yield in intersections. Summonses should warn of the possibility of jail.”

    After spending the entire editorial arguing that jailing drivers isn’t an effective deterrent, the editorial team argues that warning people of the possibility of jail will be. Um, okay.

  • Bolwerk

    “limited resources” = resources spent harassing poor/brown people should not be squandered enforcing laws against “us.”

    I wonder what they’re complaining about here:

    Truck driver Leonardo Degianni failed to signal before changing lanes
    and fatally slammed into bicyclist Mathieu Lefevre. He was punished last
    week with a six-month license suspension.

    No criminal charges? Seems he got off light for negligently killing someone. Not as light as Danny Pantaleo, but we can’t all be cops.

  • JT

    The NYPD slowdown earlier this year made it clear to me: they’re spending too much time on BS nonsense and not enough on actually investigating stuff that is serious – like traffic deaths. NYPD resources need to be re-aligned – much less for “quality of life” stuff and much more for traffic safety. Probably the same amount for robbery, assault, murder, etc.

  • JT

    I walk across Sixth Avenue east to west once a day on my way home from work, at rush hour. And of those four or five times a week, at least twice a week a car bullies past pedestrians who have the right of way. I’m sure that is happening at least 100 times over the course of the day at that one intersection. It’s out of control.

    Yes, thousands of tickets or tens of thousands every day.

  • Daphna

    Unfair: subway fares rose 10% yesterday but Metro North and Long Island Rail Road, which are each subsidized far more than the subway, with a subsidy of about $7 per ride, get fares that rise an average of 4.45% or less, and the website is rather apologetic about the few fares that are going up as much as 6% by explaining that the increases had to be in 25 cent increases and cause. http://web.mta.info/mta/news/hearings/2015FareTolls/ There is no corresponding apologetic language for why subway riders, who already pay the operating costs out of their fares and are not subsidized, or getting a 10% increase.
    Likewise, tolls for the tunnels and bridges (the ones that have tolls) are rising only 4% – which is inline with the Metro North and LIRR increases.
    If holding fares to approximately a 4% increase throughout the MTA, then that should have applied to subway/bus too. The 4% standard should have ESPECIALLY applied to the subway since riders already pay their way unlike with any part of the MTA.

  • Bolwerk

    Yeah, “we don’t have enough resources” might also mean too busy doing stupid shit to worry about actual problems.

  • Bolwerk

    TBF, the subway is only part of the NYC transit network. Buses far from cover their own operating costs, and last I checked the subway didn’t come that close either.

  • Andres Dee

    I ride the “C” often and think of the “R32s” as a trusted old friend.

  • Daphna

    LIRR and Metro North both get about $7 per ride subsidy. Each local NYC transit bus ride is subsidized an average of over $2. Each express NYC transit bus ride is subsidized an average of over $4. Access-a-ride subsidy is huge per ride, as are the subsidy for many ferry rides, both around $35. But NYC transit subway riders do cover the operating costs with their fares.

  • stairbob

    What is the subsidy per trip on driving?

  • Andrew

    Not correct. After the bonus is taken into account (formerly 5%, now 11%), the effective subway/local bus fare went up from $2.38 to $2.48, or 4.2%. The express bus fare went up a measly 2.6% (far too low, in my opinion). The unlimiteds went up 4.0% (30 day), 3.3% (7 day), or 4.1% (7 day express bus).

    The only people who pay 10% more are the ones who either pay in coins on the bus or add one fare at a time to their MetroCards (the bonus kicks in at two fares). SingleRide ticket users came close, with a 9.1% increase. All together, that’s 6.4% of fares paid – the remaining 93.6% saw a hike of 4.2% at most. (Source: http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/pdf/150323_1030_Transit_BUS.pdf page 137)

  • ahwr

    But NYC transit subway riders do cover the operating costs with their fares.

    How do you figure?

    http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2013/agency_profiles/2008.pdf

    Subway fares (or at least how the MTA assigns revenue to subways – not sure how they split the cost when someone transfers or uses their unlimited on bus and subway, but the subway gets 4% more per unlinked trip) cover ~63% of operating costs, NYCT buses cover 34%. Add in capital costs and that goes to 41% and 31%.

    What ferry cost $35? Rockaway? It isn’t running anymore. And doesn’t the express bus from there cost just as much to run? SI ferry costs ~$6.60 per trip

    http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/pubs/profiles/2013/agency_profiles/2082.pdf

    Commuter rail subsidy varies a lot by line. In 2009 the Port Washington line covered the same share of operating costs that the subway did ~67%.

    http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/lirr-mulls-options-on-port-washington-line-1.3639277

  • Ian Turner

    Looks like average trip length is just under 10 miles.
    http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf

    According to one random site, total road subsidies are $0.447/mile.
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/11/road-v-rail

    That gives you about $4.35 per trip.