What's At Stake: Bus Cuts in the 39th

The document below discusses the potential service cuts in our district if MTA funding needs are not met. In addition, we could say goodbye to meaningful upgrades for the foreseeable future. And then there is always the issue of fare hikes.

Proposed MTA Service Cuts - 39th District - Free Legal Forms
I understand that drivers do not want to pay to cross the bridges. It's a resource that has been underpriced for so long, it feels like an entitlement. The reality is we desperately need financing for mass transit in this city. Tolling the "free" river crossings and reinstituting the commuter tax are necessary measures required to keep transit fares low and maintain service levels.

Some argue that bridge tolls are regressive; this is disingenuous. The vast majority rely on transit, especially the poor, the young, and the elderly. If you want to see truly regressive funding policy, it's called a fare hike.

Nadler Amendment Passes - More Funds for Transit

Some good news anyway. $3 billion is not much, but it is a step in the right direction.

MTA Public Hearing on Service Cuts - Wednesday Night

This is a big one people. AS discussed at last month's CGNA meeting, Carroll Gardens and the 39th District as a whole are facing severe mass transit cuts. Tom Gray of Bill deBlasio's office sent the following notice (excerpted) to the CGNA listserve:

The MTA has proposed eliminating entire bus lines that service
District 39, as well as overnight and weekend service. In addition,
the MTA proposes to close station agent booths at a variety of
locations throughout Brooklyn, potentially compromising the safety of
riders.

• The B16, B23, B37, B75 Could be eliminated entirely. The B71 could
lose weekend service. And overnight service could be cut on the B67
and B77.

• Station Agents would be cut from the Metrotech end of the A, C and F
station at Jay Street; the west side of Flatbush Avenue entrance to
the Bergen Street 2, 3 station; the southbound F and G station
entrance at Bergen Street; the northbound entrance to the Carroll
Street F- and G-train station; and the entrance to the Borough Hall 2,
3, 4 and 5 trains at Court and Joralemon streets.

• Reduced frequency of service weekends on F and R and increase
crowding during off-peak on F, R, 4 and 5

• The total elimination of M service between lower Manhattan and
Bensonhurst (That means 16 fewer trains on the 4th Avenue line during
the rush hour mornings; and 12 in the p.m. rush. As a result,
rush-hour waits will double and crowding will greatly increase on the
R.)

• The G would terminate at Court Square all the time (now goes from
Smith-9th to Forest Hills on weekends, nights)


On top of these cuts, the MTA is proposing a variety of fare hikes,
including: increasing the base fare of train and bus rides to as much
as $3, increasing express bus fare to as much as $6.25, and increasing
the price of Unlimited Ride MetroCards to as much as $9.50 for a 1-day
card, $32 for a 7-day card, $60 for a 14-day card and $105 for a
30-day card.

It's important for residents to show up at this meeting and let the MTA know that these cuts are intolerable. I'll be there and I hope to see a sizable contingent there from Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gowanus, Park Slope, Kensington, Windsor Terrace, and Boro Park. All of us will be impacted by these cuts, and the burden will fall hardest on the elderly, students, and those with difficulty negotiating the subway system. Basically, anyone who relies on the buses to get around will be seriously impacted.

It's not enough just to complain about service cuts. We need to be realistic about the finance problem the MTA is facing: the City and State have shortchanged transit for years, leading to massive debts at the MTA. The debt service payments are choking the MTA budget. We need to have steady, reliable and larger revenue streams to not only run the system, but also expand it and keep up the state of good repair. Raising fares on riders yet again is NOT the answer.

Their are many proposals out there, but the two that will raise the most funds while remaining equitable are (1) tolling the East River crossings and (2) bringing back the commuter tax.

Let your elected officials know that we need reliable, robust transit funding. We won't get it unless we demand it.

MTA Public Hearing on January 28th, 6pm – 9pm
at the Brooklyn Marriott, 333 Adams Street

Ravitch Commission Plan Released

Second Avenue Sagas is hosting the document in an easily readable format.

This plan is balanced and very necessary to ensure the continued viability of the MTA. The City and State underfunded transit and relied on debt for far too long, which led to the current crisis situation.

We will also need a significant amount of federal infrastructure spending to build out the capital plan. But the Ravitch Commission Plan is a fair and workable plan to put the MTA on solid footing. It must be passed.

Already, you can hear the voices of false populism decrying the impact on the lower and middle classes. To them I say, what about the far greater number of New Yorkers who can't even afford to own cars? Mia and I happen to own a car. We have family in Massachusetts and New Jersey, and sometimes Mia uses the car for work. We both use the subways virtually every day. Every time I ride an F train into Manhattan, I pay for it. It's not too much to ask people who want to drive their own personal transportation device pay for the privilege.

An impressive roster of transit supporters and other organizations has already assembled to support the plan. Lots of great quotes in the press release from the Empire State Transportation Alliance . . . which I can't seem to find online, damn it. I'll use Ben's fancy tool:

2008-12-03 ESTA Press Release - Free Legal Forms

American Prospect Profiles Sadik-Khan

And it's a great piece, read the whole thing. This is just an aside, but something that people lose sight of when thinking of Mike Bloomberg and transit:

On the national level, Mike Bloomberg is now recognized as a progressive reformer, and his history as a Democrat turned Republican turned Independent, all for political gain, is largely overlooked. But New Yorkers, whose memories are longer, could hardly have predicted that the most recent iteration of their mayor's chameleon career would be the promotion of a bikeable, walkable city. What even most local observers don't realize is that the Bloomberg administration's unexpected commitment to these issues is due less to ideological conviction than to the influence of one woman: Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of New York City's Department of Transportation. . . . Bloomberg's own record on public spaces was far from stellar. An expert hired to direct the Transportation Department's cycling program, Andrew Vesselinovitch, quit in 2006, claiming that Weinshall and Bloomberg rejected most of his ideas and were insufficiently committed to reforming the streetscape. Under the influence of former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff, another Wall Street veteran, the Bloomberg administration had been pushing unpopular proposals to construct massive sports stadiums and apartment towers, replete with thousands of parking spaces, on the far West Side of Manhattan and in downtown Brooklyn. "Here we have the most transit-oriented city in America, and many of Bloomberg's most treasured development plans, at that point, were tied to 750-spot parking lagoons, as if this were the suburbs," says Aaron Naparstek, editor of Streetsblog, which lobbies for "livable streets."

Bonus points to TAP for quoting Aaron. Hat tip to MAC for the heads up.

511: Your Number For Transit

NY State DOT is unveiling a new phone and internet one-stop traffic and transit resource:

Please join the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council on Thursday,
November 20 at 1:15 PM for a presentation on 511, New York State's new
official traffic, transit and travel info source announced this week
during the ITS World Congress. Todd Westhuis, Project Director, and Mary
Harding, Outreach Coordinator, will discuss how 511 works, give a live
demonstration, and talk about plans for expansion at the meeting of
NYMTC's Program, Finance and Administration Committee meeting.
To see how 511 works in advance of the meeting, please visit http://www.511ny.org/ or
call 511 within the New York City and suburban areas.

The meeting will be held at NYMTC's office at 199 Water Street, 22nd
floor. For security purposes, please reply to Andrea Miles-Cole at
amiles-cole AT dot.state.ny.us or 212 383-7200. The meeting will also be
webcast live, and will also be archived for viewing at a later on
www.NYMTC.org.

This could be fantastic; everything hinges on execution however, and I hope they nail this one.

High Gas Prices "Driving" More People To Transit

The New York Times has an excellent front page article on this phenomenon today.

Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.

Now, if only we had used tax policy to do this 30 years ago, instead of funneling countless billions in extra dollars to the oil companies, various despots, and speculators then we'd have a transit system the world would envy. The Federal gas tax needs to be increased, and the funds must be dedicated to building a world class transit infrastructure. We are decades behind Europe and Japan in our high speed rail infrastructure. It's time to show some leadership again.

UPDATE: Second Avenue Sagas goes a little more in-depth on this issue.

Clinton, Schumer, McCain Pandering On Gas Taxes

Reuters - Clinton-McCain gas tax holiday slammed as bad idea
Newsweek - Political Pandering
Matt Yglesias - "real harm is done to people's lives by this sort of gimmickry"
Streetsblog - Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton: Where Is the Leadership?
TIME - Clinton joins McCain in the race for panderer in chief
Paul Krugman/New York Times - Gas tax follies

Again, this is the sort of bull$hit pandering I expect from the GOP . . . I expect this steaming pile from McCain. But Clinton and Schumer are out there shilling for a "Gas Tax Holiday" which would do NOTHING to help ordinary Americans while exacerbating our underlying problems of oil dependence and runaway deficits.

Ask any economist worth his salt: the Gas Tax Holiday is the worst kind of economic policy. Pandering to the public, yet shortchanging us of any actual benefit.

Barack Obama (video)is the one candidate in this race has called it for what it is.

My question: where is Congressman and Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner on this? Weiner very vocally opposed Congestion Pricing on the promise of increasing the Federal gas tax to pay for transit improvements. Yet he is also backing Senator Clinton for President . . . the same Senator Clinton calling for a gas tax holiday. I've called Rep. Weiner for comment, and his staff was polite. I'll post here when I get a substantive response.

Just in case I wasn't clear above: it might sound good in a vacuum, but this gas tax holiday is HORRIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE ECONOMIC POLICY. If you only have time to click one of the above links, click on TIME for Justin Fox's succinct explanation of why this is bogus pandering of the worst sort.

More Expensive To Travel These Parts

The NYT has a story today about the high cost of travelling in our region, and further hikes looming on the horizon. The handy chart above, (credit: NYT; click to expand) details the pain, and most of it falls on New Jersey commuters.

Of course, all that pain is good for something. The NJ Transit hikes will help pay for a new tunnel under the Hudson River, and the Port Authority increases help pay for all new cars on the PATH system, as well as a total overhaul of the system itself.

Unfortunately for NJ commuters, an $8 Hudson crossing toll means that the notion of giving credit towards congestion pricing for those tolls must be reconsidered.

Let's call a spade a spade: these transit hikes amount to a regressive tax. The wealthiest among us are getting off light, as years of income tax cuts have gutted public financing for transit expansion, improvements, and maintenance. In New Jersey under Christine Whitman, income taxes were slashed, and property taxes, usage fees and every other conceivable way to squeeze money out of the lower and middle classes ballooned.

In New York, transit funding was slashed by a sneering, incestuous Rudy Giuliani and the wooden, uninspiring George Pataki.

We need to re-examine the inequity of a taxing system that balances financing for public works on the backs of the middle class.

Redevelopment in Harrison, NJ: A Step In The Right Direction

Via Curbed, a terrific redevelopment project has finally broken ground in Harrison, NJ. One of the earliest industrial suburbs, Harrison suffered from years of blight and large swaths of desolate, weeded brownfields.

But Harrison has tremendous assets: an underutilized PATH station, a two minute ride to Newark's Penn Station, and convenient access to both NYC and the educational/cultural institutions of Newark (don't laugh . . . Newark has a lot to offer).

While the project also contains a large parking component, it is a boon to transit friendly development. New Jersey (my birthplace) needs more of this.

Visit Curbed for the details.

We Need High Speed Rail

Via Atrios, the AP has an article on the resurgence of interest in high speed rail:

While sleek new passenger trains streak through Europe, Japan and other corners of the world at speeds nearing 200 mph, most U.S. passenger trains chug along at little more than highway speeds — slowed by a half-century of federal preference for spending on roads and airports.
snip

The six-year-old Acela Express is the only U.S. rail line that tops the 125 mph considered "high speed" by international standards. And even supporters concede it barely qualifies, hitting its maximum 150 mph for less than 20 miles from Boston to Washington, D.C., and averaging just 86 mph over the full 456-mile run.

Even so, Acela's ridership rose 20 percent in May as gasoline prices topped $3 a gallon nationwide, said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole. Nationally, Amtrak is poised for its fifth straight year of ridership gains this year, said Marc Magliari, a spokesman for the railroad.

snip

John Spychalski, a transportation expert and professor at Penn State University, says high-speed rail will continue to languish unless lawmakers provide the same financial backing as highways and air travel. He said some could be swayed if high-profile projects such as California's succeed.

If you want to get depressed, just imagine for a moment that after 9-11, instead of attacking Iraq, we had invested $600 billion not in bombing another country, but in rebuilding our own infrastructure with a nationwide system of intercity high speed rail. Talk about a true investment in national security.

What's done is done, but it's never too late to see some actual leadership. Instead of running around throwing money at BS "alternatives" like clean coal and ethanol, let's bring our investment in high speed rail up to par or better with the huge subsidies we give away to the plane and the automobile. Hell, if you must have your clean coal, at least use it to generate the electricity to run high speed rail.

Rail could be superior to air or auto transit on many inter-city routes in the US, and is by far the most energy efficient. No conversation about "energy independence" should gloss over the fact that subsidized travel by plane and by car is the largest cause of our dependence on foreign oil.

Reading this article reminded me of a post I saw on Daily Kos back in march on building a national high speed rail network. This has to be a national priority akin to the Eisenhower Highway System, and once again, national security is a compelling reason for doing so (but far from the only reason). Searching for that post, I stumbled upon this post, which ups the ante by laying out stages for construction and integrates with Canada and Mexico for a North American rail network akin to the one in Europe. The map above comes from that post by seaprog.

Elect a Democratic President and we might actually get this started.

Regional Rail Working Group Meeting 7/18, 6pm

One of my favorite aspects of Streetsblog is the calendar of events.

Wednesday night there will be a meeting of the Regional Rail Working Group, which advocates for better coordination of transit planning among regional transit agencies such as MTA, Metro North, LIRR, NJ Transit, PATH, hell, even SEPTA.

While responsible transit planning is not a panacea, it does come awfully close:

National security implications? Check. Reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Environmental Concerns? Check. Cleaner air, better resource allocation.
Health issues? Check. People walk more, stay more fit. See also cleaner air, above.
Traffic? Check. Tired of sitting in hours of traffic? Make it easier for people to use mass transit.

And so on. Here's the meeting details:

Regional Rail Working Group Meeting

Regional Rail Working Group
A Consortium of Transit Advocacy Organizations

A key topic for discussion will be a proposal by several New Jersey rail advocates to extend the #7 subway west under the Hudson River to New Jersey, to Secaucus Transfer. Also, discussion will continue on rail equipment options for thru-running at Penn Station.

Agenda items for the July 18, 2007, meeting will include a quick update on each of these key initiatives:

• Through-running at Penn Station -- special emphasis on rail technology issues
• Upper Level Loop Alternative for LIRR East Side Access
• Penn Station-Grand Central Connection
• Rockaway Cut-off -- one-seat ride Midtown Manhattan-JFK Airport
  
• Lower Manhattan Access
• Regional Rail Freight plan
• Intercity rail issues

The key discussion item will be options for extending the #7 subway to New Jersey.

When

Wednesday, July 18, 2007, 6 to 8 PM

Where

Conference Room, NYPD Downtown Center 104 Washington Street (just north of Rector Street)

Cost - Free!

More Info: http://www.rrwg.org/mm_next.htm

New York City: Beyond the Automobile

I've written a lot about the F&V train lately, and clearly as a Carroll Gardens resident it's an issue near to my heart. But restoring the F express and extending the V out to Brooklyn is just one example of the investments we as New Yorkers can and must make in our transit infrastructure to keep this city on an upward trajectory.

The rise of the automobile was a devastating blow to this city, among others. For 50 years, scarcely any additional resources were put towards developing our transit systems, as countless billions were spent building and rebuilding thousands of miles of space hogging, environmentally disastrous highways and additional lanes on local streets.

Pedestrian flow is the life of this city. How conducive to community is it to cross a six-lane through street to see your neighbors? Or to cross under a dark, noisy and crumbling structure like the Gowanus Expressway to get to a park? Or to look out your window and see a Cross-Bronx Expressway or the BQE gouging its way through your neighborhood like a deep, painful scar?

One of the beautiful things about New York is that millions of our inhabitants can get by without ever owning a car. Without an expansive, 24 hour transit system this would be impossible. It follows that the greater the transit coverage, and the more frequent and rapid the service, the more people will travel the rails and buses, and get out of their cars.

After 50 years of favoring the automobile and truck, it's time for New York to invest in transit for people and for freight, to take back pieces of the road infrastructure for open space, and remember that a thriving city centers around people and places, not cars.

Improving Transit On the Cheap In South Brooklyn

I've long wondered why the express tracks on the F line are lying dormant in Brooklyn. Every time I use the F at Carroll or Bergen, and a packed F train rolls in, it drives me a little nuts that this infrastructure is just sitting there, fallow. Similar frustration when I'm working on the east side in the fifties, and take the V towards home, only to have it end at 2nd Ave. And what about those filthy, unused platforms at Hoyt-Schermerhorn?

Like Frank Constanza at Christmastime, I think to myself "There has to be a better way!"

Via KensingtonBrooklyn, I learned of this plan from Community Consulting dating back to 2003. There's a lot of terrific ideas there for improving transit in Brooklyn. See especially pages 11,14,21.

I love the idea of extending the V out to Brooklyn and running the F as an express. It seems like an egregious waste of resources to let these tracks sit empty, when we could cheaply improve service to thousands of people in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The V is currently a ghost train in Manhattan. Let's split the F train's burden more equitably with the V.

If we're serious about getting cars off the road, and congestion pricing in Manhattan, let's take the simple (and cheap!) measures available to us to make subway commuting a more attractive option for the outer boroughs. The better we make our transit systems, the more people will get out of their cars.