Today’s Headlines

  • NYC Transit Dysfunction Has Real Consequences (NYT, Gothamist), Now National News (AP)
  • Wondering Why Your Subway Commute Is So Terrible? Here’s a Handy Times FAQ
  • Penn: NJ Transit Has Plan (WNYC); Amtrak Briefs NJ Legislators (AMNY); Businesses “Brace” (DNA)
  • Lawmakers Want to Know How Much Christie Influenced NJ Transit’s Summer Schedule (Politico)
  • MTA Announces Overhaul of Staten Island Bus Routes (Advance 1, 2)
  • Cuomo Ignores Letter From Electeds Calling for Better Bus Service in the Bronx (Press)
  • De Blasio Ready to Sink More Resources Into Ferries (DNA, AMNY, News)
  • What Does de Blasio Really Think of Fewer Cars in Times Square? (Politico)
  • Settlement Brings No Justice for Ryo Oyamada, Pedestrian Killed by NYPD (Gothamist, DNA, News)
  • How Police Tracked Down the Suspected Killer of Matthew von Ohlen (DNA)
  • Cash-Strapped Developers Insist “American Dream” Will Be the Jon Bovi of Malls (NYT)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Vooch

    We should give credit to the NYPD for the good work they did in tracking down vanOhlen’s killer.

  • Larry Littlefield

    “Dysfunction” is the wrong word. Everything is functioning great for those who made the decisions for 25 years. They got benefits, and are avoiding the costs. And the beneficiaries are still in charge.

    “The mess at Penn Station should put more pressure on the governor to finish the East Side Access project — the MTA’s long-delayed and over-budget effort to bring LIRR service to Grand Central Terminal. That $10.2 billion project, slated to wrap up in December 2022, is 13 years behind schedule and expected to come in at double its initial projected cost, according to the Village Voice.”

    I wonder if this is a mafia like pillage of a perpetual project as at Shoreham.

    https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/the-shoreham-nuclear-plant-and-the-lirr/

    Of if Amtrak has been stalling the project to make sure New York suffers from the lack of that second tunnel to New Jersey too, since New Jersey politicians want New York City to pay while New Jersey residents get the benefits.

  • Perhaps you could keep this story in mind next time you accuse PD of covering up for a killer motorist, as you did on multiple occasions following Mr. van Ohlen’s death.

  • Vooch

    it certainly did appear that way at the time. It’s a shame that the PBA & NYPD leadership creates a wall of distrust between front line POs and public they serve.

  • Fool

    Who wrote that NYT puff piece about why the system is failing?

    The record ridership level excuse is simply not true, and they mention rising costs but do not bother to explain what is causing rising costs. We are not exactly in a period of great inflation. But I guess journalists cannot be bothered to do actual work.

    And why does no one question why it would take “half a century” to install a off-the-shelf signalling system on less than 900 miles of track?

  • You went on Streetsblog multiple times to proclaim that public servants were engaging in criminal conspiracies without a shred of evidence, and today you have the gall to blame the police leadership for your letting your own imagination run wild. Suggest taking responsibility for your own statements, and maybe apologizing for what you said.

  • Vision Zero has its faults, but it’s very clear that if it weren’t for the moral imperative of the program and the hard work of Families for Safe Streets, TransAlt, and the people in City Hall and DOT who really get it, Mayor de Blasio would have dropped or at least dramatically slowed the installation of ped plazas, bike lanes, and other safety enhancements at the request of the Very Serious People who can email him directly or donate to his campaign.

    If we’re getting this much done with someone as reluctant as Bill “I’m a motorist myself” de Blasio at the helm, imagine what could be accomplished with a true urbanist mayor who actually understood that cars no longer have much of a place in dense cities and led by example. What a shame there isn’t a better choice this November. If there were, perhaps we could have a race that’s focused on who can deliver the safest, most efficient streets for New Yorkers.

  • sbauman

    New Jersey politicians want New York City to pay while New Jersey residents get the benefits.

    Not true. NJ residents who work in NY – pay NYS income taxes. NYS benefits from these commuters. The NYS income tax paid is deducted from the amount of taxes these NJ residents owe on their NJ income tax. NJ does not benefit directly from these commuters. NYC derives no income tax benefit from these commuters or any non-city residents who work in NYC.

    Here’s why nothing has been done. NJ derives no direct benefit from NJ residents working in NYC. Paying for another Hudson River tunnel isn’t an investment, it’s a subsidy.

    NYS does derive a tax benefit. However, these NJ residents do not vote in NYS elections. NYS isn’t under any pressure to invest in this income source because NYS officials have not political obligation to NJ residents.

    Neither NJ nor NYS has any direct financial interest in building better commuter facilities for NJ residents. This argument also suggests what will happen the the PABT.

  • Larry Littlefield

    The MTA debt wasn’t mentioned. Neither was the 2000 pension increase.

    The New York Times has an aging readership. They don’t want to hear about those things.

  • “What Does de Blasio Really Think of Fewer Cars in Times Square?”

    Well, what does he really think? Who has Politico Pro anyway?

  • Larry Littlefield

    I’d consider it, but last time I checked their price was too high for state and local coverage alone. If people are expected to pay for multiple new sources, they can’t pay so much for each one.

  • Elizabeth F

    The on-the-ground outcome of this Times Square stuff is the bike lane is now pretty permanently closed. I’m sure that will make us all safer, especially those of us on bike. Oh well, it was nice the few months it lasted.

  • Brad Aaron

    It’s not paywalled anymore.

  • sbauman

    And why does no one question why it would take “half a century” to install a off-the-shelf signalling system on less than 900 miles of track?

    Nothing is “off-the-shelf” so far as the MTA is concerned. Just about every piece of equipment must conform to the MTA’s own set of operating standards. Every vendor must be properly vetted. This perpetuates a system of a small number of “approved” vendors supplying substandard equipment at inflated prices.

  • Morris Zapp

    “NJ derives no direct benefit from NJ residents working in NYC. Paying for another Hudson River tunnel isn’t an investment, it’s a subsidy.”

    NJ-to-NYC commuters pay property taxes, sales taxes, and rent in NJ, and consume goods and services that keep other NJ residents employed locally, all with income earned in NYC, yes?

    Not trying to be snarky. Just seems that access to NYC jobs very much benefits NJ.

  • AMH

    The NYT has gotten harder to read too. My academic online subscription won’t let me read articles anymore so I have to use incognito mode.

  • AMH

    I really wish a group like StreetsPAC would put forward a candidate.

  • AMH

    Very true, but more of it should be. A recent article mentioned that even subway car doors are more expensive here because they have to be designed differently. There are things that are unique about New York, but it’s absolutely not true that nothing from anywhere else will work here.

  • Komanoff

    If that Times explainer was a “puff piece” it’s b/c that’s the genre — a roundup / catchup following a series of thoroughly-reported analytical pieces.

    And, since you asked, the writer is the same reporter who yesterday filed the moving, damning, gut-level, novelistic page-one piece (which also, appropriately, led Streetsblog’s hed list) that captured, in granular detail, how subway unreliability is wrecking New Yorkers’ lives.

    Excerpt: “One woman never made it to housing court and now faces eviction. Another missed a doctor appointment made months earlier. A graphic designer lost $100 in wages. A computer technician paid more than $50 for an Uber car to make a meeting. A lawyer was late for a sentencing. A pastry chef who needs every hour of work he can scrounge lost an hour and a half of pay. A psychoanalyst never made it to her session with a patient. Neither did her patient.” [Details followed.]

    Instead of manufacturing complaints about “journalists [who] cannot be bothered to do actual work,” maybe there need to be more readers who rouse themselves to do the actual work of reading the journalism that is reporting, brilliantly and on multiple levels, our deepening transit disaster.

  • Fool

    OK, but without any investigative journalism and once again, flat out wrong reporting about “record level ridership,” it’s poor journalism. Declaring yourself a definitive source for “catch up” and then repeating the same crap that Cuomo says is not beneficial.

    It is very easy to look at the ridership figures and see it has been declining and has been since before the current barrage of breakdowns. From a simple engineering perspective it is not a coincidence that the breakdowns became pronounced with the bi-annual change in tunnel temperature.

  • AMH

    Right, all they say about rising fares is “it’s an expensive system to run”. Come on.

  • Komanoff

    What is “wrong reporting about ‘record level ridership'”?

    Ridership only fell in 2016, and it was early 2016 or even 2015 when Prendergast began pointing to volumes as a key contributor to delays. Which I believe. Do you not?

  • JarekFA

    They’re running less trains now then they did in 2008. Go back to 2008 frequencies and they won’t be as crowded. That’s on the MTA.

  • HamTech87

    Is that true? Fewer trains than in 2008? Why haven’t I heard this before?