Commuter pricing will fix this

AM New York  

The MTA Board approved on Wednesday a budget plan for 2025 that includes public transportation fare hikes and toll increases slated to take effect next summer.

The board unanimously voted to pass the plan during its monthly meeting on Dec. 18. The exact amount of the increases has yet to be announced but could go into effect in August 2025. 

In recent years, the MTA approved 4% increases in fares and tolls. Should that trend continue, a base fare for a subway or bus trip would cost $3, up a dime from $2.90, come next summer, according to an article from ABC 7. 

Meanwhile, during Wednesday’s meeting, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber boasted of “excellent service” and surging subway ridership. 

“Last week, we set a new single-day record for subway ridership, 4.5 million customers,” he said. “Compare that to 2021, when this group began when the average weekday was less than half of that level.”

The most recent fare hike occurred in 2023, when the base NYC Transit fare was bumped up 15 cents, from $2.75 to $2.90. That marked the first such increase in eight years.

 

Despite the fare rise, Lieber remained optimistic and said the agency is coming out “on a high note” for 2024.

“I always look back at the goals we set at the beginning of the year, and when I took the chair a couple of years ago, priority one was recovering ridership to support the region’s comeback and also to help us achieve financial stability,” he said. 

Lieber added that the MTA vowed to deliver “excellent” service to New Yorkers. 

“And we also needed to keep the capital program on track to earn the public’s trust on how the MTA was going to spend money,” he said.

But New Yorkers whom amNewYork Metro talked to Wednesday after the budget vote did not hold back their opinions on the increase, some even calling it “straight-up greed.”

Others said they pay too much for too little service.

“This is absolutely outrageous. That last increase led to subpar service as it is,” said Roger Smith, an Upper West Side resident. 

Carlos Rivera of Harlem questioned what the increases will actually support, as he is often stuck waiting for late trains and buses. 

“I wish us New Yorkers could audit the MTA because this is absolutely ridiculous at this point,” he said. “Track maintenance and the trains and buses are never on time. Where is our money going?”

 

WDEI

Hmm, anyone can apply? I would like to do a heavy metal power hour. Wouldn't it be a sight to see real moshes instead of the ones that are transferring from the subway to the 7 above?

MTA makes pregnant woman stand to guide commuters

@newyorkrealm MTA makes pregnant transit worker stand all day guiding commuters #NYC #Subway #MTA ♬ original sound - New York Realm

 

Congestion pricing will fix this.

The MTA sucks.

 

 

Operation Hochul Drop

THE CITY 

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced the latest in a series of subway safety initiatives, placing MTA police officers, state troopers and 750 National Guard members at some of the city’s busiest stations to conduct bag checks.

Following some headline-grabbing incidents underground — including the slashing last week of a conductor that led to what a top transit official called “some kind of work-stoppage charade” by the transit workers union — Hochul said beefing up the uniformed presence in stations will curb rider and worker fears.

“There’s a psychological impact, people worry they could be next, anxiety takes hold,” the governor said. “And riding the subway, which would be part of your everyday life, is filled with stress and trepidation.”

Hochul unveiled a “five-point plan to rid our subways of people who commit crimes” while standing alongside police officers, National Guard troops and MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber at New York City Transit’s Rail Control Center in Midtown.

The five elements are: deploying about 1,000 more uniformed personnel for bag checks; accelerating the installation of cameras on every train and in conductor cabs; a proposed bill that would allow judges to ban people convicted of assault; expanding the number of mental health response teams; and holding regular meetings between transit personnel, police and prosecutors.

The MTA’s police force, which patrols the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North, already posts officers at subway stations connected to commuter rail hubs.

The latest anti-crime effort in the subway comes as NYPD numbers show transit crime in 2024 through March 3 is up by 13% from the same period last year and just last week TWU International President John Samuelsen said assaults on workers have increased by nearly 60% from last year.

“No one should have to go through what Alton Scott went through,” Lieber said, citing the veteran subway conductor who was slashed in the neck last week.

Overall, crime in the subway system is rare. According to the MTA’s latest data from January, less than two major crimes took place per one million riders that month. Major crimes are defined by the NYPD as burglary, felony assault, robbery, grand larceny, rape and murder.

Richard Davis, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, praised the plan to put more police in stations, while saying the union’s calls for beefed-up subway security were ignored for months.

“As a result, riders and workers alike have suffered,” Davis said. “While MTA leadership willfully looked the other way, blood has been spilled.”

Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams — who pinned his absence from the latest subway safety announcement on a scheduling conflict — have previously unveiled multiple versions of plans to cut into subway crime and homelessness by increasing the number of police officers in stations.

In an interview on WPIX-11 Wednesday along with Chief Michael Kemper, head of the NYPD Transit Bureau, Adams insisted the new bag checks would not lead to racial or ethnic profiling. 

“We’re not profiling, we’re random based on the count, a number,” the mayor said. “And people who don’t want their bag checks can turn around and not enter the system. You don’t have to come through and do the bag checks, but they are random.”

Still need congestion pricing?

 

NY Post

The MTA could potentially find another $600 million in savings in its bloated plans to extend the Second Avenue Subway, a Post investigation found — as the agency faces pressure to prove it’ll spend its upcoming congestion toll windfall wisely.

New York is potentially just about three months away from launching a controversial $15 daily charge on cars that drive below 60th Street in Manhattan, raising $1 billion a year for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to spend on projects, such as its expansion of the Q line to East Harlem.

“MTA management is ineffective, and handing more money to unelected bureaucrats will not fix the MTA’s problems,” testified real estate agent Lucas Callejas, 38, of Inwood, during a public hearing about the congestion fee plan Monday.

“I absolutely don’t trust the MTA with my money … They spend like crazy,” added Dana Matarazzo, 40 an oncology nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering from Staten Island, who spoke to The Post after testifying against the toll.

MTA officials announced last month they shaved $300 million off the $6.9 billion total estimate to extend the Q line from its terminus at 96th Street another 1.5 miles up Second Avenue and then westward along 125th Street to Lexington Avenue.

But The Post’s analysis found another $600 million in savings in the MTA’s station designs, when compared to what it would cost to build a similar project overseas.

While the tunneling costs are in line with those of other major cities, such as London and Rome, the station costs and designs remain in an entirely different league, The Post’s analysis revealed.

Before the recently-announced trims, the MTA’s budget for tunneling, trackwork, stations and power, computer and radio systems was estimated to be $4.1 billion.

The new, “more efficient” station designs have helped lower the figure to $3.8 billion — still more than the $3.2 billion would cost to build a similar project in London, the most expensive of the European cities examined by The Post, in a worst case scenario.

Experts and researchers zeroed in on two major factors that have pushed the MTA’s station costs to levels not seen elsewhere: The amount of area set aside of passengers to circulate on mezzanines before heading down to the platforms; and the amount of “back of house” areas sealed away from public view that provide space for storage closets, mechanical functions and break rooms.

The feds granted permission to rework the 125th Street station design in 2020 in an earlier second round of reviews for the East Harlem leg, but officials not reveal the full scope of the overhaul until stories ran in The Post highlighting the size of the original 2004 design. The first round of tweaks approved by regulators in 2018 allowed the MTA to put the 116th Station in an empty piece of existing tunnel.

The three rounds of reviews have shaved an estimated 17% off of what could have been a $7.6 billion total price tag, records show. Officials have said the third round of reviews remains ongoing.

The overall now-$6.6 billion budget for the East Harlem expansion also includes $245 million for land purchases and eminent domain, $559 million for outside engineering, design and management firms, plus a whopping $943 million for a budget reserve.

The project’s construction costs alone could have been as high as $4.4 billion had the MTA re-used the station designs from the Second Avenue Subway’s Upper East Side extension, a much-delayed project that shattered cost records.

“That’s the hard part, turning this ship around,” said Eric Goldwyn, who lead a team of researchers at New York University that revealed how oversized the MTA’s Upper East Side designs were compared to those used in Stockholm, Rome and Istanbul, dramatically inflating costs.

“When people asked them about our research, they said ‘we were a–holes,’ basically,” Goldwyn added. “I’ve been encouraged by what I’ve seen, but there are absolutely things to keep looking at.”

MTA raises fares despite congestion pricing go ahead from Pete the Rat Buttigieg

Photo by JQ LLC, taken a few days ago.

 

 Queens Chronicle

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday approved fare and toll hikes that will take place in August. The base fare for subway and bus rides will increase to $2.90.

Express bus fares will rise to $7, from $6.75. Seven-day unlimited-ride MetroCards will rise to $34 from the current $33, 30-day unlimited MetroCards rise to $132.00 from $127.00.

OMNY card users will get their bonuses over any seven-day period, rather than just from Monday through Sunday.

Tolls at MTA bridges and tunnels will go from $6.55 to $6.94 for E-ZPass drivers, and from $10.17 to $11.19 for toll by mail. The Long Island Rail Road’s discount Atlantic Ticket, connecting Southeast Queens to Brooklyn, will be gone.

In a press release, Charlton D’souza, president of Passengers United, was disappointed. He said the fare should remain at $2.75 for subways and buses, and an express bus should be $4 rather than $7.

“We are outraged that the Atlantic Ticket weekly LIRR pass ... is being eliminated for Southeast Queens residents,” he said.

State legislators fantasy MTA fix

 

Queens Post 

New York City lawmakers and public transport advocates held a rally in Albany on Tuesday, Feb. 14, calling on the state to pass a finance bill worth nearly $11 billion that they say would fully fund the MTA through 2026 and make it more efficient.

The legislation, known as Fix the MTA, would also keep current subway fares at $2.75 and prevent a proposed 25 cents hike to $3.

It would also make bus rides throughout the city free by 2027 and aims to make services more frequent and reliable — by ensuring subways and most buses arrive at least every six minutes, every day of the week.

The largest portion of the package, around $4.6 billion, would essentially bail out the agency by plugging its forecasted budget deficit for the next four years, while nearly $2 billion would go towards increasing bus services across the system by 20 percent.

Around $1.4 billion would be allocated to the agency to account for a 27% dip in ridership numbers compared to 2019 levels.

Fun fact: nothing is mentioned about congestion pricing. And it's mostly hedging on

State Senators Michael Gianaris, Jessica Ramos, John Liu and Kristen Gonzalez were among the Queens lawmakers who attended the rally, while Assembly members Zohran Mamdani, Alicia Hyndman Juan Ardila, and Jessica González-Rojas were also present. Assembly member Robert Carroll from Brooklyn and Assembly member Tony Simone from Manhattan also attended.

They were joined by transportation advocate groups such as Riders Alliance, the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA and Transportation Alternatives.

 Jesus Christ these cults are just never going to go away, as a public duty I present the counterpoint plan from Passengers United who actually ride the buses and the trains everyday with their proposal to "fix the MTA" which also includes public safety measures for transit workers, something the Albany fauxgressives and the moneyed transportation actorvates never bother to acknowledge.

 

 

 

 

Mayor Adams orders involuntary removal of mentally disturbed people from public places and the subway

 

New York Times

Acting to address “a crisis we see all around us” toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways.

Mr. Adams, who has made clearing homeless encampments a priority since taking office in January, said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who were a danger to themselves, even if they posed no risk of harm to others, arguing the city had a “moral obligation” to help them.

“The common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent,” Mr. Adams said in an address at City Hall. “Going forward, we will make every effort to assist those who are suffering from mental illness.”

The mayor’s announcement comes at a heated moment in the national debate about rising crime and the role of the police, especially in dealing with people who are already in fragile mental health. Republicans, as well as tough-on-crime Democrats like Mr. Adams, a former police captain, have argued that growing disorder calls for more aggressive measures. Left-leaning advocates and officials who dominate New York politics say that deploying the police as auxiliary social workers may do more harm than good.

Other large cities have struggled with how to help homeless people, in particular those dealing with mental illness. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed a law that could force some homeless people with disorders like schizophrenia into treatment. Many states have laws that allow for involuntary outpatient treatment, and Washington State allows people to be committed to hospitals if a judge finds that they pose a threat to themselves or others.

Officials in New York said the city would roll out training immediately to police officers, Emergency Medical Services staff and other medical personnel to “ensure compassionate care.” But the city’s new directive on the policy acknowledges that “case law does not provide extensive guidance regarding removals for mental health evaluations based on short interactions in the field.”

The policy immediately raised questions about who, exactly, would be swept up in it, and some advocates for people with mental illness warned it could face legal challenges.

Existing state laws allow both the police and medical workers to authorize involuntary hospitalization of people whose behavior poses a threat of “serious harm” to themselves or others. Brendan McGuire, chief counsel to the mayor, said on Tuesday that workers would assess people in public spaces “case by case” to see whether they were able to provide basic needs such as food, shelter and health care for themselves.

The city directive states that “unawareness or delusional misapprehension of surroundings” or “delusional misapprehension of physical condition or health” could be grounds for hospitalization.

 

Caption Commissioner Sewell

 

  

NY Post 

City straphangers have been more likely to be victims of crime in the last two-and-a-half years compared to before the pandemic, The Post previously reported.

Killings in the subway system since 2020 have also skyrocketed to the highest annual levels in 25 years as the city grapples with an overall spike in random violence, NYPD stats show.

The system had seen nine murders so far this year as of Oct. 31, compared to six during that time period last year, according to the newly released data, according to the newly released data.

The transit violence that has prompted officials to deploy more police officers underground, with the state footing the bill for overtime.

But noteworthy and heinous crimes have persisted, including back-to-back stabbings last Tuesday night that left three people injured including a good Samaritan. 

Usually I just post a picture and just leave it there, but this capture came from the presser announcing this new deployment and that look Commissoner Sewell was giving Adams while he was reading from a script claiming subway crime was down was just too perfect. 

Also from the same press conference, this picture of Mayor Adams presenting honors to two hero cops is just inexplicable.

Queensway at Aqueduct?

 

 

Um, is the Aqueduct Station in Ozone Park being prepped for the Queensway linear park already?

JFK station attack emphasizes Mayor Adams transit safety policy failure

 

Eyewitness News 

 

Mask mandate on mass transit is over

 

Queens Post

The state’s mask mandate for public transit has been lifted, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday.

Hochul said the state will immediately end masking rules on subways, buses, Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. The new policy also applies to airports, for-hire vehicles, correctional facilities, detention centers and homeless shelters.

The governor said that while the masks are no longer required, their use should be encouraged. Signs will be posted on the subway and in transit areas that will promote mask use but make clear that they are optional.

There's the sign above. These are the people that want to induce congestion pricing on people. Confederacy of dunces 2022.

MTA coming up short on funding the subway from low ridership, but will devote 10 years to make cellphone service accessible in the tunnels.

 

 NY Daily News

 The MTA needs billions in new funding by 2025 to avoid dire cuts to mass transit service in and around New York City, agency officials said Monday.

Before the pandemic, rider fares and driver tolls covered about 40% of the agency’s roughly $18 billion in annual operating expenses. But new ridership projections show that model is no longer sustainable.

New projections now show that the MTA faces a $2.5 billion funding shortfall come 2025, giving lawmakers precious little time to find new funding sources to prevent service cuts and layoffs that would hamper New Yorkers’ ability to move in and around the city.

“The new dedicated funding is necessary to avoid what we’re all trying to avoid,” said Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chief Financial Officer Kevin Willens. “Large fare increases, service cuts and layoffs.”

The MTA previously estimated ridership on the the agency’s subways, buses and railroads would reach 77% of prepandemic levels in 2022, bumping up to 86% in 2023. But the spread of the omicron variant over the winter halted many companies’ plans to return to in-person work, tanking those estimates.

The MTA now projects just 61% of those riders will be back on trains and buses this year — with just 69% of them returning in 2023.

 Transit officials on Monday did not lay out what new funding sources they seek, but said planned fare hikes for 2023 and 2025 wouldn’t be enough to cover the shortfall.

CBS New York 

Cell service is coming to New York City's subway tunnels. 

On Monday, MTA CEO Janno Lieber told CBS2 the agency is rolling out a 10-year plan to install equipment that will let riders use cellphones in all underground tunnels. 

Lieber said the $1 billion investment also includes installing Wi-Fi service at all above-ground stations. 

Transit Wireless CEO Melinda White said in a statement, "Expansion of the riders' connectivity through the tunnels and across the above ground stations shows the MTA's ongoing commitment to the rider experience."

The upgrade comes as the MTA is strapped for cash. The agency is moving what it calls its "fiscal cliff" up one year sooner, since outside projections of ridership returns fell short. 

The MTA is turning to the federal government for more money, saying the pandemic relief funding will now run out in 2024. 

The agency says a full return to ridership may not come until 2035 or later. No doubt, officials hope advancements, like adding Wi-Fi, get more people underground sooner.

MTA's depleted workforce has exacerbated transit delays

 

NY Daily News

Train crew shortages are the leading cause of the thousands of subway delays straphangers endure each month, new MTA data shows.

Crew shortages delayed 10,563 subway trains last month, or 18% of the 58,266 subway train delays reported, MTA data show.

A lack of crews accounted for more delays this year than any other cause — including public conduct and crime, which delayed 5,355 trains, or 9% of the total delays, and and signal failures and emergency track repairs, which delayed 2,701 trains, or 5% of the total, the MTA’s data shows.

Delays pegged to crew shortages in April were down from the 16,783 reported in August, when Janno Lieber took over as Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman and launched an aggressive hiring effort.

The MTA employed 7,773 people in April for subway service delivery — mostly train operators and conductors. That’s down slightly from 7,812 in January and about 9% fewer from the end of 2019, when the agency employed 8,562 people in subway service delivery.

One cause of the shortages was a hiring freeze put in place during the first year of the pandemic, a decision MTA leaders at the time defended as a cost-saving measure to keep the agency’s finances above water.

Hiring was also slowed by the agency’s “transformation” team formed in 2019 under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. MTA chief administrative officer Lisette Camilo during a board meeting called that effort a “tornado” that consolidated teams “so quickly that some functions were left without a home.”

Caption Brad Pander annoying a commuter on the day of the mass shooting

This guy is an asshole

Man shoots 10 commuters on a subway train during rush hour in Sunest Park

Take the A(xe) train

 

NBC New York

It was a frightening scene after a man began swinging an ax onboard an A train Friday, police said.

According to the NYPD, police received a 911 call of a person acting erratically and swinging the weapon onboard an A train, heading to Rockaway, shortly after 4 p.m.

"It must’ve been a harrowing call for our 911 operator to hear & relay - a report by a straphanger of a man swinging an axe on an A-train. Thankfully with our enhanced deployment, District 23 officers were at the ready, intercepting the moving train & taking the man into custody," NYPD Transit police tweeted Saturday along a photo of the large ax that appeared to be a couple of feet long.

Police responded and canvassed the area before arresting Obadiah Lashley, 27, at Beach 67 St Station. Lashley was apparently still on the A train when he was apprehended.

It is unknown what charges, if any, Lashley faces or if he has an attorney. It is also unclear how many passengers were on the train or if anyone was in immediate danger.

Any data on how many people bought a car after this incident? 

NYC Social Services Dept. official doesn't think homeless people can get or spread COVID

Here is DSS Deputy Commissioner Erin Drinkwater downplaying the importance of the homeless wearing masks on the subway, despite the governor's order for masks to be worn on mass transit. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/Qy61QBwtVS

— Robert Holden (@BobHoldenNYC) April 23, 2020

MTA's virtue signalling on signal upgrades

 

THE CITY

The MTA’s multi-billion-dollar quest to speed up subway trips by replacing ancient signals is running into delays and cost increases.

The transit agency plans to spend more than $7 billion for new signals on sections of six lines as part of its 2020 to 2024 capital program. But snags with ongoing signal replacement projects in Queens and Brooklyn underscore the headaches and challenges that can accompany such ambitious and intricate projects.

“In terms of the daily experience that riders encounter, this is the biggest issue in terms of reliability,” said Ben Fried of TransitCenter, a transit research and advocacy organization.

On many lines, the traffic lights and indicators can date to the 1930s, limiting capacity on a system strained by high ridership prior to the pandemic. But with commuters steadily returning, state-of-the-art signals are key to MTA’s $51 billion five-year capital plan to upgrade the transit system.

“The benefits are great,” Robert Gomez, the MTA’s chief signals engineer, told the agency’s board Monday. “They provide for better service, faster running times, more capacity, shorter [waits] and bring the system to a state of good repair.”

The only two lines in the subway system equipped with modern so-called communications-based train control (CBTC) signals — the L and the No. 7 — produced some of the highest weekday on-time performance in October, MTA figures show, at 93% and 91%, respectively. That’s above a systemwide average of 83% last month.

Meanwhile, the latest estimates for “substantial completion” of launching a similar signal system along stretches of the E, F, M and R lines that run beneath Queens Boulevard and the elevated F and G lines in Brooklyn have been pushed back, MTA officials said this week.

The $663 million Queens Boulevard CBTC project, which was supposed to be in service this past March, is now scheduled to be operational by the end of the year, according to MTA documents — with its budget increasing to $729 million.

“It does happen far too often,” Andrew Albert, an MTA board member, said of the delays. “There will be some growing pains as different signal systems are phased in and phased out.”

And the project along Brooklyn’s elevated F line — aka the Culver Line — to modernize signals along nearly five miles of track between Church Avenue and West 8th Street, is experiencing COVID-driven delays that have pushed the substantial completion date from August 2022 to June 2023, MTA documents show.

 

It's a gas!

 

 NY Daily News

Federal researchers will release nontoxic particles and gases into the New York City subway this month as a part of a study on airborne terrorism threats, officials announced Sunday.

Researchers from the Homeland Security Department and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aim to find “actionable data for emergency preparedness authorities,” according to an advisory from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The particles and gases that will be used in the study are designed to imitate biological and chemical agents, authorities said. The scientists will set up air testing devices at dozens of locations across the subway from Oct. 18-29 to conduct the study.

The Homeland Security Department did an environmental assessment of the gases and particles to be released to ensure they’re safe, officials said.

It’s not the first time the feds have used the city’s subway system as a testing ground for potential airborne attacks.

This month’s research is part of the Urban Threat Dispersion project, which in 2016 conducted similar experiments in the subway.

But U.S. officials haven’t always notified straphangers they’re involved in the test.

The Army in 1966 sprayed a bacteria officials said was harmless directly onto city subway riders as part of an experiment made public in 1980. The subway riders — accustomed to wild experiences underground — did not notice the test, which Army officials said made the system a prime target for a covert attack.

MTA officials promise the latest airborne tests will be much more transparent.

 Just forget about COVID-19 and the Delta Variant for a few more weeks