The MTA announced it’s possible proposal for a monthly MetroCard to skyrocket to $130 for their wonderful service.  A weekly MetroCard could jump from $27 to $38, and the one way fare could perhaps go up as high as $2.50, on top of the recent fare hike. It’s time for New York City’s most famous rider and most outspoken supporter of the New York City subway system, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to speak up for us. Or was it all a publicity stunt that he used the subway to get to work at city hall? 
A man that has $100 million to spend on an election, who meanwhile pays himself a $1 per year salary, otherwise has money to burn. So it is apparent that he does not need the fabulous MTA the way the rest of us working class dogs do. A Democrat until he ran for mayor in 2001, Bloomberg switched to the Republican party. He then left the Republican Party in June 2007 to become an independent and denied he intended to run in the 2008 presidential election, despite his spending millions again trying to determine the feasibility of such a run. So much for democracy in which a basic principle is voting. We New Yorkers voted for term limits, but Bloomberg had these over-turned with rumored back door deals.  In the fall of 2008, Bloomberg switched to the Communist party. This illegally allowed him to run for a third term against the will of the people. What would Karl Marx say? “Job well done,” perhaps? Okay, Czar Bloomberg, it’s time to represent the people of New York….all of us! Even the working class people of New York.

MTA board has authorized public hearings on fare and toll hikes that could hit in January as well as layoffs.  Expected is the 30-Day unlimited-ride Metro Card would increase from $89 to $99 and would be limited to 90 trips with an extra $5 for no limits. There could be a $1 fee for new Metro Cards if not using refill option. It costs $0.07 to produce a MTA fare card. The single ride fare would increase to $2.50 for one-way subway rides.  By the way, MTA Chairman Jay Walder is paid $350,000 a year, receives pension payments and a housing allowance.  My recent blog pointed out the story by Greg Mocker of WPIX News that Diana Jones Ritter is starting a new position with the MTA on July 16 to oversee cost-cutting and restructuring at the MTA. She’ll be paid $217,000 a year.  The MTA web site always has other high paying employment positions. What about layoffs at the top not the bottom? What about just making the system not suck? The next you are jammed into a packed subway train and hear “train traffic”, “stalled train”, “late train”, etc…what will you think about fare increases.

MTA “Budget Restrictions” have caused cancelled or reduced service, route changes, longer wait times, layoffs, booth closings, etc all leading to, if possible, poorer MTA service…all in an effect to save money and close budget gaps.  Commuting for South Brooklyn is terrible. Commuters in Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach and Coney Island ride the Q and B subway lines which share 1 track and Coney Island and Bensonhurst no longer have the M line all riders forced on to the D line.

Diana Jones Ritter is starting a new position with the MTA on July 16 to oversee cost-cutting and restructuring at the Metropolitan Transit Authority; according to one report, she’ll be paid $217,000. The MTA press release praised Jones Ritter’s background. An ongoing story by PIX 11 News reporter Greg Mocker on the nightly 10PM news has pointed out that the release did include one glaring mistake:

It said “she is accountable for an $8 billion budget” when in fact the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) budget is about half that  just over $4 billion.

Mocker quickly discovered there was plenty the MTA didn’t say about Jones Ritter.

Most glaring was a June 2010 investigation of OMRDD by the New York Senate Task Force on Government Efficiency. The report cited millions of dollars in wasteful spending on overtime, housing, and poor cost containment by the OMRDD… Another eye-opening report came from New York’s State Inspector General. It found “apparent nepotism and undue influence in employment practices at the OMRDD New York City Office’s Fiscal Unit.

…In response to a flurry of questions from Mocker about Jones Ritter, the MTA issued this… “Diana Jones Ritter was selected for the job after an extensive internal and external search. An exhaustive check of her background and references reaffirmed her excellent credentials and track record. Governor Paterson played no role in her hiring, nor did the activities of her husband. We are very confident that she is more than qualified.”

So what do you think of this MTA hire?

The perfect shave – passing N-trains keep the branches trimmed in the exact shape of the top of a subway car. Photos and video: Brian Hedden

A battle is being fought between nature and the trains of NYC Transit’s N-line. Branches from some sort of vegetation – I hesitate to give it a name – have been hanging off the wall over the Coney Island-bound platform of the 18th Avenue Station, to the point where they are making physical contact with every train that goes past. For the most part, this isn’t really posing any problem – the passing trains keep the branches trimmed at the point of contact.

This bad boy, however, has made it through the blockade. It snakes it way around the passing trains, and directly over the platform. And…

…I kinda wonder how many more whacks it can take before it breaks off and smacks somebody across the face.

The new Bay Ridge bus map, effective this Sunday, June 27. The B37 is gone, the B70 is rerouted to compensate. The B1 and B64 switch places, and the B8 runs past the VA Hospital only late-night.

The doomsday cuts, the cuts that were not supposed to happen, are suddenly upon us because the State or the Federal government did not save us.  Doomsday is this Sunday. That is the day when Southern Brooklyn will lose the M-train and many bus lines, some entirely; other bus routes will lose overnight or weekend service, and some routes will be restructured. Click here for the new Brooklyn bus map, in effect starting Sunday, June 27.

The bus cuts, as they relate to Southern Brooklyn, are…

Express Buses

The X37, and X38 to Midtown will become part of the X27 and X28, respectively so that Midtown passengers will first get a sightseeing tour of Lower Manhattan adding about 15 minutes to their trip. The X29 that operates only during weekday rush hours will be eliminated entirely.

Reduced Hours

Weekend service will be lost on the B2, X27 and X28.  Overnight service will be lost on the B7, B31 and B64. The B9 and B16 will lose a few hours of service at the beginning and end of the day.

Shortened Routes

The B3 will be chopped off in Bergen Beach and will now terminate on Avenue U.  The B8 will be chopped at the VA Hospital (except during late nights when the B70 does not operate) instead of terminating at the 95th Street Station of the R-train in Bay Ridge.  The B64 will be chopped at 25th Avenue and will no longer serve Coney Island. The B4 will no longer operate on Neptune Avenue, but instead will use Avenue Z. It will also now terminate at Coney Island Hospital at all times when it operates, except on Monday through Friday between 7 AM and 10 AM and from 2 PM to 5 PM, when it will continue to serve Plum Beach.

Eliminated Routes and Restructured Bay Ridge Service

The B23 that operates along 16th Avenue and Cortelyou Road will be eliminated entirely.  The B37 will be eliminated, but the southern end of the B70 will replace it in Bay Ridge by being diverted from 8th Avenue to 3rd Avenue.  Finally, the B1 and B64 will swap routes with each other at 86th Street and 13th Avenue.  The B1 will continue along 86th Street to 4th Avenue while the B64 will serve southern 13th Avenue and western Bay Ridge Avenue.

Negative Impact – Overcrowding, Longer Waits, Longer Walks

Although a few modifications were made as a result of the public hearing held on March 3rd, these cuts are still devastating if your route is affected.  The R train will be overloaded at DeKalb Avenue and the D (West End) will be more crowded during rush hours.  Riders will be forced to endure longer walks.  Riders along Bay Ridge Avenue will also wait longer for a bus, since the B64 operates less frequently than the B1 that currently serves that street. Only a few people will benefit, those who travel along 86th Street will have a more direct trip if they have to cross 13th Avenue.  Some trips which previously required two buses to complete, will now require three buses, and for this privilege of having to take an extra bus, you will also be charged an additional fare if you don’t have an unlimited pass.

Lack Of Transparency Into Service Cut Rationale

While some cuts were probably necessary due to the MTA’s budget situation, the problem with these cuts is that a consistent methodology was not followed. The process was not transparent.  The MTA laid out criteria but never explained how they were used. The result was routes being eliminated which were more efficient than others that were retained.  For example the X27 and X28, eliminated on weekends are far more efficient than virtually every express route operated by the MTA Bus Company on weekends where weekend service is being retained.  The B4, which was originally going to be cut east of Coney Island Hospital at all times, has had some weekday service to Plumb Beach retained when it would have been more cost efficient to retain weekend service instead.

Since the MTA loses money for every rider it carries, it has no interest in making the system easier to use which would attract riders and necessitate more service. Instead, their goal is to provide less service, which reduces costs, but also reduces revenue by deterring riders, since the system becomes more difficult to use. At the same time, the City touts leave your car at home and use mass transit.

The author is a Former Director of MTA NYCT Bus Planning (1981).

The MTA hates us all. Photo credit: Brian Hedden

Last weekend, the MTA suspended R-train service from Whitehall to 95th Street, as they do from time-to-time. Shuttle buses were provided for riders going to and from Bay Ridge.

This happens from time to time, and it isn’t much fun. But what made this especially infuriating this time is that it coincided with the Bay Ridge Fifth Avenue festival.

I just don’t understand – the Fifth Avenue festival – clocking in around 20 blocks – is one of Bay Ridge’s major annual events. Allowing a major disruption to a neighborhood’s only subway line during such an event is unacceptable, and Transit has a history of doing it (a similar event last year in Bushwick during an L-train outage comes to mind).

It’s time for the City and MTA to work together to end this nonsense.

I used to like to play hooky in June on a warm weekday before school summer break. I would jump on a B express train bound for Brighton Beach.  I’d leave early morning and go against Manhattan bound train jammed with the working class dogs. I’d get off the train and lay in sand as the beach was not crammed with people…a nice summer breeze would make me feel fine blowing through the jasmine in my mind. But now there is no express going to or from Brighton Beach because of MTA construction which will run local until fall of 2011…two summers.

With the sad MTA history this project will probably be over budget and behind schedule! As I ride the slow train going past the construction workers I see one guy doing all the work and 4 or 5 guys just standing there watching. How many times have you been on a Brighton Beach local train and it breaks down, delayed for a stalled train, a police investigation, a sick passenger, or whatever BS excuse, etc and your almost manageable commute becomes a long terrible trying ordeal and there is no announcement or sounds like Charlie Brown’s grandmother or you ask an unknowledgeable MTA employee WTF is going on and the worker does not know because of the poor MTA communication?

The overpriced MTA is quick to do one thing…point the blame finger at someone else! Only if the trains moved that fast…I got a finger to point at them. “It’s Albany’s fault”….well true Albany politics sucks….they don’t care because they don’t ride the system but they are quick to waste our tax dollars…if you pay taxes. Their cruel and unusual punishment should be to ride the sucky subway during rush hours. That lawbreaking Mayor Bloombucks illegally overturned term limits and spent 100 million dollars for a third term. Money the MTA could have used but would have misused! One of his “campaign promises” was an express train for Brooklyn…yeah who believes false statement? Ya ya he occasionally rides the subway (though he really only does so when there’s a photo-op in it for him)…during non rush hours. Hey did all you tea partiers and teetotallers vote?

This rusty heating unit can be found in the waiting area of the 18th Avenue N-train station. On particularly cold days, some morning commuters will wait here instead of on the platform for a few extra seconds of warmth.

This heating unit was turned on this past Wednesday. You know – the record-breaking, 90-degree Wednesday? Our fastest trip from March to 90-degrees in the history of recorded weather, that Wednesday?

A plain picture of a rusty heating unit isn’t doing the scene justice at all. This is what the area looked like when I switched my camera over to infrared mode.

Hey – is it just me, or are a lot of people ending up dead or almost-dead on the subways these days? Three people were killed in two unrelated incidents over the weekend: early on Sunday morning, two men were stabbed to death on a 2-train in Manhattan over an errant bag of garbage that his the assailant in the head. Later that afternoon, a woman was killed by an N-train in Bensonhurst in what the police have deemed a suicide.

In order to combat this spike in dying on the NYC subways, I have prepared this handy guide of unsolicited advice.

5. Maybe you want to be dead, but we don’t want that! Plus death-by-subway is one of the oldest pleas for attention in the book, second only to death-by-tallest-building-in-the-city. No one is impressed, and I think you’ll find proving all the haters wrong by fighting through life’s struggles the hard way a lot more satisfying.

4. The MTA already has an Arts for Transit program, they don’t need your help. I still don’t have any sympathy for the 16-year-old graffiti vandal who had his leg severed by the N-train.

3. Do not go on the tracks. Ever. I don’t care what you drop on the tracks. Could be your phone. Could be your iPod. Could be your purse. I don’t freakin’ care. It’s not worth being dead. There’s only one reason you should ever ever ever go down to the tracks, and that’s to pick up another straphanger. Especially if she’s cute.

2. Don’t do anything stupid. More importantly, tell your friends not to do anything stupid. The victims in last weekend’s 2-train stabbing, by all media accounts, were trying to play peacemaker to the assailant and their dipshit friend that threw the bag filled with empty beer bottles in the first place. The fact that he hit a hot-tempered and armed crazy person is a little beside the point – that was just stupid, and now two people are dead.

1. Don’t antagonize crazy people. Don’t know which ones are crazy? Neither do I. So don’t antagonize anyone. Aside from being great Golden Rule advice, you might also be saving your life.

The MTA has made a small handful of minor revisions to their subway-and-bus reduction plan, based on the feedback they received from the dog-and-pony show token public hearings held earlier this month. The five page memo is filled with substantial changes. For example: instead of combining M-train service into the V-train, they will now combine V-train service into the M-train.

The MTA has slightly altered their plan to shorten the B4 as well. The Coney Island Avenue-to-Emmons Avenue portion of the route has been saved! But… only during the morning (6am-9am) and evening rush (2pm-7pm).

Weekend service for the remaining portion of the route is still getting axed.

(Photo: Brian Hedden)