New York City - Transit News

[chris08876]

Best with full screen.


Credit: http://iheartmoveny.org/

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by electricron

It would be far more than encouraging that city counsellors were celebrating passing and implementing a new funding plan instead of rallying around one politically.
It would also be far more encouraging to read completing a project on time and on budget than reading about more delays and the resulting more cost overruns.

absolutely not -- you have to rally around political ideas and plans and get people on board first, that is how politics works, not the other way around. personally, i am not against moveny, but i have issues with it myself, because it penalizes locals too much and especially because i think the commuter tax bloomberg got rid of should be reinstated instead of or along with it to help pay for this stuff. so the moveny plan is no small action.

and as for second avenue, sure its disappointing to have the $ cut, but there may likely be no actual major delay. they have to move around a lot of buried infrastructure like pipes and wiring first, which will take it to the next budget anyway. so they would not be tunneling until then no matter what.

[Cynicism]

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[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Cynicism

By contrast, the East Side Access scheme to bring the LIRR into Grand Central is still getting its full $2.57 billion.


Will that thing ever open? $10 Billion for a mere 4 milies of tunneling or so.
But yes, at least its still going.

first of all its a project not a scheme, we are not talking about 1950s england here; second of all its 6.1 miles of tunneling not 4, plus underground concourses, platforms, yadda, yadda; and finally, yes its expensive, but so is the mediocre coffee at starbucks, right?

[mrnyc]

city council organizing around move ny, a plan to install tolls to help fund mta:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2416432

[scalziand]

Because of its' trenched and half tunneled nature, I feel to see how the Mott Haven line would be useful as a linear park. Better to keep it reserved for transit uses.

[mrnyc]

stop delaying 2nd ave!

http://nypost.com/2015/11/02/stop-de...avenue-subway/

[k1052]

It seems that the MTA did little real work planning for a start on phase 2 upon completion of phase 1. So even if the money was still in the budget it couldn't be spent. Nice job guys.

[Cynicism]

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[mrnyc]

some sort of good news from amny this morning:


Scrappy subway riders this year are surviving more often than they did last year after being hit by trains, according to MTA data.

Trains have struck 181 straphangers in 2015, leading to 41 deaths.

At this point last year, 171 riders were hit on the rails and 52 died.


http://www.amny.com/news/more-nyc-su...015-1.11063807

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

some sort of good news from amny this morning:


Scrappy subway riders this year are surviving more often than they did last year after being hit by trains, according to MTA data.

Trains have struck 181 straphangers in 2015, leading to 41 deaths.

At this point last year, 171 riders were hit on the rails and 52 died.


http://www.amny.com/news/more-nyc-su...015-1.11063807

That's terrible. That's not good. It was too extremely dangerous out there. You cannot go beyond the yellow line. You could being killed. You have to stay away from the tracks by approximately 100 feet. Unfortunately, they couldn't get out of there alive. They couldn't survive. No one who need their helps. Keep away from the tracks. Stay in platforms. Stay where you are!

[mrnyc]

more 2nd avenue response:


MTA capital construction head: Agency will try to speed up East Harlem phase of Second Avenue Subway


The MTA official in charge of big projects like the Second Avenue Subway said construction probably could have been started earlier in East Harlem if the capital plan hadn't been so delayed this year.

"We'll do whatever needs to be done to speed up the second phase," said Michael Horodniceanu, president of capital construction.

MTA chairman Thomas Prendergast asked Mayor Bill de Blasio this year to give the MTA $1 billion for the next phase of the Second Avenue Subway, which will bring it from the Upper East Side to East Harlem. The city agreed to give the MTA a total of $2.5 billion for its capital plan, but the MTA moved the construction back last week and slashed $1 billion for the project.

Officials said they didn't expect tunneling in East Harlem to begin until after 2019, because of how long it would take to do the design and environmental review process.

"We have committed that if we can speed up the schedule to begin tunneling the East Harlem phase sooner, we will pursue a Capital Program amendment to do so," said Prendergast in a statement. "Governor Cuomo has made clear that he would like us to accelerate work on the Second Avenue Subway, and we are actively looking for ways to deliver the project faster."

When asked last week about the changes to the Second Avenue Subway's funding, Mayor de Blasio said he was proud of the city's contribution and that "a lot of change is going to happen for our straphangers."

On Tuesday, following anger from local officials about the change in timetable, he said "we were all surprised to hear some of the changes around the Second Avenue Subway." He then praised the MTA chairman on Wednesday for agreeing to look at the situation again, and called it a "smart move."

The MTA's $29 billion capital plan, which runs from 2015 to 2019, wasn't approved by its board until late October.

The plan still has to be reviewed by a state board.


http://www.amny.com/transit/second-a...ial-1.11062467

[mrnyc]

recent public tour of east side access project -- lots 'o pics:


http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/5/96...al-lirr-access

[mrnyc]

^ totally agree of course, the platforms are dangerous --

but i think many of those may be suicides or suicide attempts.

[mrnyc]

two deaths last night -- very sad:

http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/su...icle-1.2427158

[mrnyc]

looking into reviving trolley service:

http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny...icle-1.2431840

[mrnyc]

^ it certainly is legitimate and believe me i feel your cynicism, but when questioning costs it helps if you correctly understand what is being built rather than underplaying it and guessing.

[antinimby]

The answer is simple: unions and bureaucracy.

[mrnyc]

interesting -- i wondered about this!


Car sharing services like Uber and Lyft will cut MTA profits by $10M a year: officials

BY DAN RIVOLI NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Wednesday, November 18, 2015, 1:48 PM

Fierce competition from Uber and Lyft is taking a bite out of the MTA’s finances, transit officials said Wednesday.

The MTA estimates that the rise of Uber and Lyft will mean a net loss of $10 million a year due to fewer yellow and green taxi trips — which charge a 50-cent fee to support the transit agency.

“It seems that market share is coming away from the medallion cabs, going to the app-based services,” MTA financial chief Bob Foran said. “We were hoping that the whole pie would grow.”

Under the MTA’s 2016-2019 financial plan unveiled at a board meeting Wednesday, much of the lost MTA aid — $68 million over four years — is driven by the popularity of car service apps like Uber, MTA officials said.

more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2439242

[tdawg]

Saw this on Curbed:

NYC Subway Broke Its Single-Day Ridership Record In October
Friday, December 11, 2015, by Amy Plitt

We all know the subway is crowded, but this is something else: October 29 was the single highest day for subway ridership since the MTA began keeping track in the 1980s, with more than 6.2 million straphangers riding the rails that day—6,217,621, to be exact. That's 50,000 more people than on the last record-breaking day, October 30, 2014.

According to the New York Daily News, October was overall a record month for the subway system: There were more than 15 days that month when single-day ridership went above 6 million people, and average weekend ridership was higher than it has been in 45 years. And, according to the MTA's release, "approximately 80,000 more customers rode the subway on an average October 2015 weekday than just a year earlier—enough to fill more than 50 fully-loaded subway trains." So if you feel like you're constantly being smushed into a car on your morning commute…that's why.

In the same statement, MTA chairman Thomas Prendergast said, "Our challenge is to maintain and improve the subways even as growing ridership puts more demands on the system." Now that the MTA actually has a funding plan (albeit a not-so-great one), let's just hope they can actually keep up with it, eh?