Communications-Based Train Control can relieve crowding throughout the subway system, Albany permitting. Photo: ianqui/Flickr

As the Times and Second Avenue Sagas reported, L train riders will start benefiting from more frequent service next summer, when the MTA adds trains on the weekends, which have seen an 84 percent jump in ridership since 2005. But the major advance in service, which promises to relieve crowding on some of the most jam-packed rush-hour trains in the system, will come at the end of 2012, when the new CBTC signaling system is slated to be completed.

Like most transit improvements here, the implementation will be slow and will come with some service disruptions. But the short-term pains will be well worth this major upgrade to NYCT’s antiquated signal technology. Whereas the century-old system now in use relies on block signals with colored lights alongside the track to tell operators if they’re too close to the train ahead, CBTC uses radio signals to locate all of the trains on the line. With this information, on-board computers can calculate the distance between trains precisely and in real time, letting operators run trains closer together without compromising safety.

With more trains per hour, wait times will diminish and trains should be less crowded — allowing for increased ridership as the experience of riding the subway becomes more convenient and pleasant. Adding just one train per hour adds space to move another 2,640 people. That translates to fewer times waiting while a packed train goes by, and fewer elbows in your ear when you board.

Unlike service changes that can be put in place virtually overnight, CBTC requires years of investment via the MTA’s capital program. The new signaling system on the L is the product of substantial investment starting in the mid-1990s and continuing today. Along with investments in new subway cars and buses, station repairs and upgrades (including elevators), and track replacements, CBTC is one of the “workhorse” projects that together require far more MTA capital expenditures than megaprojects such as East Side Access and the Second Avenue Subway. And rightly so — CBTC is destined to improve the speed and comfort of rides all over the city.

The L train improvements, in fact, don’t fully convey what CBTC can accomplish. The line doesn’t have the “tail tracks” (extra space for turning trains around) at Eighth Avenue that would be needed to allow double-digit percent increases in train throughput.

The next two CBTC installations do have room, and these shouldn’t be made to wait any longer for the extra capacity CBTC will allow. Riders on the 7 train desperately need the added service, especially now that the Flushing Main Street station is the city’s tenth busiest with 18.6 million rides last year. The current five-year capital program includes funds to fully equip 7 train tracks and cars for CBTC. The MTA has also targeted the Queens Boulevard lines (E, F, M, and R trains) for CBTC installation — a process starting in 2013 and intended for completion during the next capital program, which is supposed to begin in 2015. Some stations on this line are among the system’s most crowded, with over 6 million rides per year. Jamaica Center teems with over 11 million. The MTA can complete these improvements, provided it gets financial support from the governor and the legislature and escapes the budget raids that Albany has imposed with alarming regularity lately.

Although the seeds for implementing CBTC and improved service on the L train were planted almost two decades ago, the project wouldn’t be coming to fruition without the watchdog efforts of legislators like Sen. Daniel Squadron, who has made transit provision a priority and called on the MTA in July to address weekend overcrowding on the L train. The MTA’s thoughtful response to Sen. Squadron, which highlights CBTC, could mean that the authority is turning a corner in responding to riders’ needs. Perhaps the impact of this project will help other elected officials and the public at large to grasp their interest in supporting the capital program with a sustainable funding stream — one that lets innovations like CBTC take the pressure off jammed subway lines.

Photo: Sabrina Porter

The Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives have chosen the winners for their best and worst of New York City Transit photo contest. The top “Good Transit Scene” was “Break of Day ” by Sabrina Porter, while John Wehmeyer took the prize for best “Bad Transit Scene” with “”Reassuring? Not so much!”

Photo: John Wehmeyer

Porter and Wehmeyer will each receive a 30-day MetroCard. Check out honorable mentions here.

“These photos show our transit system at its best — and its worst,” said TA Executive Director Paul Steely White. “It’s time we had more of the former and less of the latter. The winning photos shine a spotlight on the real-world consequences of transit funding cuts and remind us what we stand to lose if nothing is done.”

Not to diminish Wehmeyer’s victory, but White reminds us of another transit tableau that is sure to go down in history as one of the most repulsive of all time:

Photo: Liz Benjamin

The transit photo contest held by the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives has moved into the final round. Five finalists have been selected for the photo that most captures New York City’s transit system at its best, and five have been chosen to represent the system at its worst. You can vote for your favorite here.

The winning photographers will each receive a free monthly MetroCard, while the winning photographs will be used in an ad campaign making the case for better transit, so choose carefully.

Not to influence your vote or anything, but I voted for the two photographs above. In the “best of transit” category, I thought this shot of light streaming onto a subway was just beautifully composed, though the image of three boys showing off for the camera best represents my favorite moments on the train. In the “worst of,” I had to vote for the picture of sludge piled up at the Canal Street station; that station is right next to Streetsblog HQ, so that pick was personal. Let us know in comments which you voted for.

Be sure to check out the full photo galleries as well. Some of the best photos in each category didn’t make it into the final round at all, and they’re well worth a look.

This gorgeous photograph of the Beverley Road subway station in full bloom, brought to our attention by Brownstoner, somehow manages to make peeling paint look beautiful. Photo: flatbushnelson via Flickr

We often describe the importance of transit in numbers, like the fact that 54 percent of New York City households don’t even own a car. But even the most convincing stats can get a little dry. To help capture what the subways and buses mean to a city where the transit system is the closest thing to a shared experience for eight million people, the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives are launching a photography contest. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all.

The contest will feature two categories: the things we love about transit — only-in-New York juxtapositions, for instance, or the system’s speed and ease — and the problems that make us fed up with the MTA. The winners will be featured in an ad campaign intended to make the case for better transit, said Straphangers Campaign Coordinator Cate Contino, while photos showing specific problems, like the mysterious dripping at certain subway stations or the shuttered bus stop a community once depended on, will be sent along to the MTA in the hopes of resolving the issues.

“We know that the MTA has been forced to make some really tough choices,” said Contino, explaining the goal of the ‘bad transit scene’ category. “We want to capture these declines that we’re seeing mostly anecdotally.”

The winners will each receive a 30-day unlimited MetroCard. To enter, submit your photos at straphangers.org by June 10.

In 1974, the Franklin Avenue Shuttle derailed, a not infrequent occurrence as deferred maintenance took its toll on the transit system. Photo: Doug Grotjahn via nycsubway.org.

Last week we wrote about how the looming $10 billion deficit in the MTA’s capital plan could lead to a $3.00 fare and $137 monthly pass within three years. That’s not the only way the transit authority could decide to respond to a lack of funding, however.

At the other end of the spectrum from fare-backed borrowing, the MTA could decide that it cannot take on any additional debt. In that scenario, the MTA would simply have to cancel or postpone every unfunded maintenance and expansion project — most of the next three years of the capital program. You can see those projects at the MTA’s capital dashboard, here. The result will be breakdowns, delays, and a slide back toward the decrepit and dangerous subway system of the late 1970s.

“You can expect to see the condition of the system decline pretty rapidly if you’re not doing this work,” said Felice Farber, the director of external affairs for the General Contractors Association of New York. “It’s not too hard to get back to the poor quality service of the past,” she said.

“You’ll have older buses, so they’ll be breaking down more often,” explained Pete Foley of TWU Local 100. “Subways will have to go slower,” as they pass over worn out tracks, he continued. “Eventually you’re going to have cracks. You’ll have derailments if you have a crack in the rail.”

Delays will be more common during rush hour as well, due to the lack of regular preventive maintenance. “You’ll be fixing things when they break,” said Foley. “They’ll wait until it’s an emergency.”

In the final three years of the capital plan, Farber said, 23 percent of the cost is network expansions like East Side Access, 27 percent are basic repairs to the system, 35 percent goes to regular replacement of tracks or buses, and thirteen percent to system improvements like new communications technology.

Expect to see more of this if the state doesn't fund the MTA capital plan. Buses and subways will start to break down pretty quickly without necessary repairs. Photo: Cory Doctorow via Flickr.

Over time, said Farber, putting this work off would force riders to pay more for less. “What happened on the New Haven line is the perfect example of what happens when you defer maintenance.” In 2000, then-governor John Rowland refused to buy new Metro-North cars. That decision ended up resulting in a ten percent service cut during rush hour this winter, when the repairs needed to the old cars overwhelmed the MTA. “They also paid huge overtime expenses while they struggled to get their system up to speed,” said Farber.

Both Farber and Foley noted that even though the capital program is currently funded, the transit system is already starting to struggle. “If you ride the train now, we’re already starting to see train delays because of signals, starting to see the doors have only one side open,” said Farber.

Foley pointed to scaled back plans for the MTA’s mega-projects. One of the two stations on the 7 line extension won’t be built, for example, and the corridors connecting the different subway lines at the Fulton Street Transit Center were narrowed by around six feet.

Station repairs and customer service improvements could be some of the first to go if the MTA’s capital plan deficit isn’t closed. “That’s the direct passenger experience,” said Farber. The current round of station repairs are mostly in Brooklyn and Queens, she said.

The expansion of real-time arrival signs to the lettered subway routes, the new subway intercoms, and security cameras also won’t go into effect, said Foley. “They’ll just have to cut these out.”

In reality, of course, the MTA can choose to mix and match between fare-backed debt and deferred maintenance, putting off the features that might be nice to have and charging riders for the ones they need to have. The MTA could also potentially swap in service cuts or layoffs for fare hikes.

The bottom line is that without the revenue that a solution like congestion pricing or bridge tolls could provide, none of the MTA’s options are good for riders. Should our transit system buy what it needs by taking out a huge loan and sticking transit riders with the bill? Or just let the system begin to fall apart? Albany shouldn’t be content with either.

If Albany doesn't do something about the $10 billion deficit in the MTA's capital program, MTA debt will pile even higher and transit riders will be forced to pay it off at the farebox. Image: NYS Comptroller

With each passing month, the MTA comes closer to the day of reckoning on its unfunded capital plan — the maintenance work that keeps trains and buses running and the expansion projects that provide more access to the system. While the first two years of the 2010-2014 capital budget were funded, there is a $10 billion deficit in the remaining three. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any plan from the city, state, or federal government to find this funding. In fact, between the State Senate’s goal of repealing the MTA payroll tax and the House GOP’s budget-slashing, there may be more obvious paths to the MTA losing revenue than gaining it.

Albany has twice passed up the chance to plug a major part of this gap by enacting bridge tolls or congestion pricing. Increasingly, it’s time to ask what happens to transit riders if legislators just don’t do anything. The options aren’t appealing: a $3.00 base fare or 1970s-style breakdowns and delays.

In one scenario, the MTA could decide that everything in the capital plan, from basic repairs to the system to megaprojects like the Second Avenue Subway, has to happen. In this case, they’d have to borrow the money to pay for the improvements up front. If the MTA borrowed all $10 billion, according to the state comptroller’s office [PDF], the MTA’s yearly debt service obligations would soar even higher than they are already projected to. In 2010, debt service cost the MTA $1.9 billion. If the capital plan is paid for by borrowing, by 2019 debt service would total $3.9 billion.

To pay for all that extra debt, the MTA would have to increase its yearly revenues the only way it can, by raising fares and tolls. According to Neysa Pranger of the Regional Plan Association, the MTA would need between $1 billion and $1.5 billion in new annual revenues to pay for $10 billion in bonds.

The 7.5 percent fare hike scheduled for 2013 — that’s on top of this year’s equivalently sized hike — is predicted to raise around $460 million a year, according to the comptroller’s report. Based on that number, it will take roughly a 24 percent fare hike to get $1 billion in new revenue and a 32.25 percent hike to reach $1.5 billion.

For riders, that’s a steep price to pay. If the fare hike is distributed evenly across different types of fares (for the latest hike, the base fare was held constant while the price of a monthly pass soared), that means a base fare between $2.80 and $3.00 and a monthly pass between $129 and $137.50 by 2014. If you think that people get mad about typical fare hikes, just wait.

For a single person buying a 30-day pass every month, that could add up to $400 more in transit costs each year. Families with children would be paying more than $1,000 more each year.

Another way to think about it is that this 24 percent fare hike would basically be in effect for 30 years, as straphangers gradually pay off this $10 billion loan. Over the 30-year lifetime of the bond, a single transit rider would spend an extra $12,000 to pay off just the next three years of unfunded capital projects.

The 2015-2019 capital program will need another revenue stream. Leaving that program unfunded would trigger a whole new cycle of borrowing and fare hikes.

In the end, the MTA is unlikely to put the entire cost of the capital program onto fare hikes. As Pranger pointed out, New York already puts more of the cost of its transit system onto riders than anywhere else in the country. “While it’s reasonable to ask riders to assume some of the costs of maintaining the system, the operating ratio needs to remain stable,” said Pranger.

In a follow-up post, we’ll look at the alternative to massive fare hikes: deferred maintenance, unreliable service, and the deterioration of the transit system.

Photo: cunningsue/Flickr

MTA chief Jay Walder floated the idea of off-peak discounts in an interview in today's New York Times. While Walder didn't offer quantification, the Balanced Transportation Analyzer software model I've developed with Ted Kheel can estimate the effects of time-varied subway fares -- not just how ridership might shift from peak to off-peak periods, but indirect impacts such as the shift of auto trips to transit and the resulting changes to car travel speeds.

The results look promising for this prototype fare structure that I tested with the BTA:

• 1/3-off subway fare from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.
• 1/6-off subway fare from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and 7:00 to 11:00 p.m.
• 15 percent higher subway fare from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. (Although Walder referred only to off-peak discounts, the model suggests that forestalling an increase in ridership during the two peak hours, when the system is strained beyond capacity, could require raising fares at those times.)
• No fare change during the "shoulder" hours of 7:00 to 8:00 a.m., 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., 4:00 to 5:00 p.m., and 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.
• 1/4-off subway fare at all hours on weekends and holidays.
• 1/4-off bus fare at all times (not mentioned by Walder but assumed here to preserve overall fare parity).

Here are the results:

• The average price of a subway ride drops by 23 percent, equivalent to a $210 annual savings for a typical straphanger who takes 12 trains a week.
  
• Notwithstanding the overall discount, however, peak-hour subway users who could not change their commute times would pay $100 a year more in fares.
  
• Annual savings of $230 for bus riders, due to the assumed 25 percent drop in bus fares.
• Subway usage increases 3 percent, even as morning and evening peak hour ridership drops by 1 percent and 3 percent, respectively, slightly easing crowding during those critical times.
  
• Bus usage increases 5 percent.
• 15,000 fewer cars enter the Manhattan CBD on weekdays, raising average speeds there by 2 percent.
• Car and truck drivers save six million hours of travel time worth an estimated $230 million that they now lose to gridlock each year -- with a majority of the savings occurring outside the CBD.
• A rise in cycle and pedestrian commuting due to lower traffic, with the resulting increase in physical activity translating into health and longevity benefits worth an additional $116 million a year.
• Fewer crashes and less pollution, with health and related benefits close to $100 million a year.
  

The downside of this program is an estimated $300 million drop in farebox revenues: $134 million on the subways, $162 million on buses.

The logical place to make up the shortfall, congestion pricing, is a subject Walder will obviously want to avoid until he is on even firmer political footing. The synergies are strong from a technical standpoint, since differential subway pricing would help the subways absorb car drivers whom a cordon toll would induce to switch to transit. The political synergies could be strong as well if differential fares help expand the constituency for congestion pricing.

Amount of space that would be needed for cars if subway-riding New Yorkers thought like, say, a certain assemblyman from Westchester.

Parsing data derived from 2008 subway passenger counts and the NYMTC 2007 Hub Bound Report [PDF], Frumin writes:

Just to get warmed up, chew on this -- from 8:00AM to 8:59 AM on an average Fall day in 2007 the NYC Subway carried 388,802 passengers into the CBD on 370 trains over 22 tracks. In other words, a train carrying 1,050 people crossed into the CBD every 6 seconds. Breathtaking if you ask me.

Over this same period, the average number of passengers in a vehicle crossing any of the East River crossings was 1.20. This means that, lacking the subway, we would need to move 324,000 additional vehicles into the CBD (never mind where they would all park).

At best, it would take 167 inbound lanes, or 84 copies of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, to carry what the NYC Subway carries over 22 inbound tracks through 12 tunnels and 2 (partial) bridges. At worst, 200 new copies of 5th Avenue. Somewhere in the middle would be 67 West Side Highways or 76 Brooklyn Bridges. And this neglects the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, NJ Transit, and PATH systems entirely.

Take a gander at the map above to get an idea of the real estate that would be taken up by all those cars. Think such a proposition would lead John Liu to base his stances on congestion pricing and bridge tolls on principle, rather than wind direction? Could Deborah Glick overlook her personal hatred for the billionaire mayor long enough to save her constituents from carmaggedon? Would the prospect of seeing his district literally transformed into a parking lot prompt Sheldon Silver to finally take an unequivocal stand favoring transit over car commuting?

Right. Probably not.

Following another revision to the Second Avenue Subway construction timetable, the first phase of the mega-project remains, as ever, about seven or eight years away from completion. Pete Donohue reports in the Daily News:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has finished an in-depth analysis of the work schedule, budget and potential hurdles for the long-awaited addition to the system, sources told the News.

The conclusion: the official completion date for phase one of the project should be pushed from June 2015 to December 2016, with possible future delays placing the opening in the summer of 2017, the sources said...

The original schedule for the first phase projected a 2012 completion date but MTA officials have pushed the date back several times over the years -- most recently in March 2008.

I'm lucky. I don't have to put up with sardine-style rush-hour commuting on the Lexington Avenue line. But if I did, I'd want relief as soon as possible. Eight years is a long time to ask people to wait, especially when a viable alternative like physically separated Bus Rapid Transit can be provided much sooner, at much less expense. And if experience is any guide, this won't be the last time the Second Avenue Subway gets pushed back, either.

ITDP director Walter Hook said it well in an interview with Streetsblog this February:

I don't know why Japanese and Chinese cities can roll out 10 miles of new subway line a year, and the richest city in the world has been trying and failing to build the Second Avenue Subway since the 1960s. But I've lived in this town a long time, and I am skeptical. The optimists are telling us that we will have a Second Avenue Subway between 125th Street and 63rd Street by 2015 and only after we spend $4 to $5 billion. So this means we are probably talking about 2018 or 2020, and $10 billion. The Second Avenue Subway would be great, it’s needed, it would have higher demand than almost any other metro line in the country. At those volumes, metros are often a good investment. But will it happen?

The MTA has a huge hole in its next capital program, with billions in funding for core maintenance still unaccounted for. That comes first, no matter what. If our legislative goons in Albany can't muster the will to fund mega-projects, too, we can still expand the system: On the east side of Manhattan, the right BRT configuration would carry almost as many commuters as the Second Avenue Subway, for a fraction of the cost.

There are messengers who do it. Some of them take their bikes, which drives me crazy, cause I’ve just never agreed with the M.T.A. I know bicyclists will now ring the phones off the hook, but they are just too big, particularly at rush hours -- I just don’t think they should allow it. But I’m not running the M.T.A. …

While the mayor, who rides the 4/5/6 line to work, is not in charge of the MTA, he does control the city's streets. Could it be that many East Side cyclists are driven underground by a lack of adequate biking facilities?

It's disappointing that Bloomberg, who seems to understand the value in providing dedicated spaces to ride, doesn't see a connection here. If he wants fewer cyclists on his train, protected bike lanes for the East Side would be a good place to start.

Whatever your stance on the Ravitch Commission's MTA rescue plan, the broad inequities of allowing New York transit service to deteriorate while fares rise 23 percent are stunning. The doomsday budget passed earlier this week would affect vastly more New Yorkers than bridge tolls or congestion pricing, burdening those who can least afford the added delay and expense.

The Regional Plan Association and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign came out with a strong one-two punch yesterday that frames this disparity in no uncertain terms, countering the shopworn drivel we've been hearing in defense of the "driving public."

These fact sheets from the RPA chart the doomsday service cuts by borough. The maps are helpful and alarming -- visual confirmation that pretty much everyone who rides the train can expect longer waits and more crowded conditions. Bus riders from eastern Queens to lower Manhattan will see routes eliminated and less frequent service. I see that in my neighborhood, Windsor Terrace, the B75 is slated for extinction, shunting more riders onto the F train.

New Yorkers who would bear the brunt of these cuts, of course, outnumber those who would be asked to pay bridge tolls under the Ravitch plan. The gap is cavernous, as Tri-State shows in these fact sheets, updating its earlier analysis of congestion pricing impacts. In the Bronx, where pols balked at the Ravitch plan's modest Harlem River bridge tolls, car-free households outnumber car owners by greater than 3 to 2. The margin is much larger when straphanging commuters are compared to solo drivers -- 5 to 1. Even in Westchester, three times as many people commute to Manhattan by transit as by driving alone.

As ever, the populist "defense" of the driving public is a bunch of hokum that no reporter should let go unchallenged. Households without a car earn, on average, less than half what their car-owning counterparts make. Streetsbloggers know this already. What about everyone who gets their transportation news from the morning paper and the local network desk anchors?

NYC subway weekday on-time performance, measured as the "percentage of trains that arrive at the terminal within 5 minutes of the scheduled arrival time." Source: mta.info.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today launched an email and text messaging system that will notify registered customers of planned and unplanned service changes at any of the MTA's family of transportation agencies... The system will be fully operational tomorrow morning.

Using the MTA's website at www.mta.info, customers can register to receive alerts about any combination of subway lines, bus routes, rail lines, bridges or tunnels. They can choose to receive them 24/7, or only during a particular time of day or week.

Eat your heart out, Twitter.

Via Transport Politic, some encouraging transit news from Iraq, where the mayor of Baghdad recently announced plans to move ahead with the city's first subway lines. The Guardian reports:

One of the new proposed subway lines would run 11 miles from Shia-dominated Sadr City in the east to Adhamiya in north Baghdad. The other would traverse 13 miles and link mixed central Baghdad to the primarily Sunni western suburbs.

Both lines would have 20 stations each and run through a patchwork quilt of sectarian neighbourhoods, which largely remain divided, despite the security improvements. Bombs still rattle Baghdad daily, but on a much smaller scale than the violence that ravaged the capital throughout 2006-07.

Naturally, huge question marks remain about a project that's been tabled repeatedly over the years due to disruptive violence. But is there a better metaphor for a unified Baghdad?

"If anyone suggested a train back then, they would have been sent to one of Saddam's old mental homes and never heard from again," said an incredulous Umm Fatimah, 41, from the suburb of Karada. "Even now it does seem a bit crazy, but not as crazy as then."

Another Karada resident, Nazem al-Qasemi, said something had to be done to sort out Baghdad's chronically clogged arterial roads. "Look at it," he said, waving a hand at a gridlocked roundabout. "Even if this is just talking, at least it's giving us hope."

Graphic: Osamu Abe via Transport Politic

In today's Times, Richard Brodsky weighs in on the pitfalls of shortchanging capital needs in the face of the immediate MTA budget crisis.

"The need for investment in the system is gargantuan," said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County who is chairman of a committee that oversees the authority. "Twenty-five years from now what we do on the capital plan will resonate much more loudly than what the debate is going to be about fare increases."

"It would be a terrible mistake to take whatever resources may be available and use them all on the operating side," Mr. Brodsky said.

The key words here: "whatever resources may be available." As the MTA contemplates eliminating bus routes and subway lines in addition to raising fares, we have not yet heard a proposed solution from Brodsky, who promised Streetsblog in April that he and his colleagues, having killed congestion pricing, would "continue ... good faith efforts to deal with the real problems of congestion and mass transit funding."

We have a message in with Brodsky's office in hopes of getting his views on potential service cuts, fare hikes, and the possibility that the Ravitch Commission will recommend measures that he has opposed in the past, including congestion pricing.

This cartoon, by Tom Toles of the Washington Post via Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, refers to DC subway funding, now under attack from conservative "think tanks." But it could just as easily apply to transportation and public works projects across the country, which continue to be largely overlooked despite their prior role as job generators in otherwise hard times.

Given the logistical difficulties and escalated costs of boring underground, Dwyer points to an alternative (link added).

Only now are city and authority officials beginning serious exploration of using the surface of the city, rather than its underside, for mass transit.

One idea is to dedicate portions of big streets and avenues to protected bus lanes, physically separated from other traffic. Riders would pay their fares before they boarded. An experiment to do that in the Bronx has made a big cut in travel time, said Joan Byron, director of the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative at the Pratt Center for Community Development.

Such systems are called bus rapid transit, and the cost to build them is $1 million to $2 million per mile, Ms. Byron says, compared with $1 billion per mile for the Second Avenue subway.

“If you just took the cost overruns for one year on any of the megarail projects, that would pay for a handsome bus rapid transit network,” she said.

As Streetsblog readers know, the Pratt Center, headed by current Brooklyn City Council candidate Brad Lander, has advocated a BRT build-out for some time. After the jump, an excerpt from the Center's testimony [PDF] before the Ravitch Commission.

We should consider putting the Second Avenue Subway on hold to implement and evaluate the success of the First/Second Avenue BRT route, which will be running the length of Manhattan by the end of next year, and could be simply connected to a Brooklyn route of the Williamsburg Bridge a year or two later. Let’s make this work -- with a genuinely separated lane, off-board fare payment, bulbs and stations that make for rapid boarding, signal-light timing, and inter-borough connections -- and see how much of the need we can satisfy at a fraction of the cost.

While it is, as the Pratt folks acknowledge, "anathema" to suggest abandoning projects like the Second Avenue subway, from a livable streets perspective a citywide BRT system as they envision it would be a true game-changer. BRT (or light rail for that matter) re-allocates street space away from private motor vehicles in favor of public transit and, with proper design, pedestrians and cyclists. While there's no denying its merits as a people-mover, a Second Avenue subway essentially maintains the street-level status quo, and at a much higher cost.

With the city already on board with Select Bus Service, and with the MTA cutting capital projects, struggling to maintain existing infrastructure, and pondering cuts in service, is it time to consider shifting capital resources toward a true BRT network?

Image: Las Vegas MAX system via Tri-State Transportation Campaign

New York City has long sent the feds billions more in taxes each year than we get back in services. To give you an idea of one place the money goes, here is what the feds gave corn farmers to tend their fields in a two-year period: $36 billion.

Here is what we got to run the subway: 0

The feds have been reasonable when it comes to helping out with big projects like the new subway and train tunnels that never get done. But, we get not a penny toward the day-to-day cost of transporting 4 million straphangers.

I interviewed Larry Hanley a couple of weeks ago. He's the former Staten Island bus driver (famous for getting up in Rudy Giuliani's grill, among other things) who now serves as a Vice President of the Amalgamated Transit Union. Negotiating contracts across the Northeast, Hanley is seeing smaller transit systems in places like Lancaster, PA and Albany, NY struggling with increasing operating costs at a time when they are also experiencing record increases in ridership.

With New Yorkers facing a pair of fare hikes and a deteriorating transit system, Hanley is arguing that federal funding in mass transit is an investment in local economies, green jobs, the environment and national defense. "We've got a Saudi Arabia's worth of energy savings beneath the streets of New York City," Hanley said. "It's called the subway."

Photo: Crowded bus in Champaign-Urbana by Benchilada on Flickr.

Thank you for contacting me in support of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal. As you probably are aware, on March 31, the City Council approved a home rule message authorizing the state to approve Mayor Bloomberg's plan. The vote was 30 members in support and 20 against. I voted in support of the proposal. However, neither the State Assembly nor the State Senate acted in time to move this plan forward.

Anyone who drives in New York understands that congestion is a major problem, particularly in the Central Business District (CBD). Heavy traffic doesn't just anger and inconvenience drivers. It impacts our economy and environment as well. It is estimated that congestion costs the city $11.6 billion worth of lost business revenue, productivity, operating costs, and fuel and vehicle costs. In addition, because of our poor air quality, New York City asthma hospitalization rates are more than twice the national average.

Congestion pricing was one significant way to address these issues. It would have reduced traffic, improved air quality and public health, and provided critically needed funding for mass transit. Currently, our public transportation system is stretched to the limit. Nowhere is this more evident than the East Side. The Lexington Avenue subway line is operating at 110% capacity and, with 65,000 riders daily, the M15 is the most heavily utilized bus line in the Western Hemisphere.

Congestion pricing would have allowed the city to receive a one-time federal grant of $354 million for short-term mass transit improvements and allowed the city to use the congestion pricing fees to bond out an estimated $4.5 billion for major transit projects. These funds would have gone towards critical capital projects like the Second Avenue Subway, Bus Rapid Transit on First and Second Avenues, and East River ferry service. In addition to these large scale projects, if congestion pricing has been implemented, my Council District will have benefitted immediately from these short term transportation improvements:

• 46 new subway cars, primarily for the E & F lines
• 5 additional buses on the M101/M102/M103 lines
• 4 additional buses on the M86 line
• 2 additional buses on M66 line
• 3 additional buses on M31 line
• 6 additional buses on M15 line
• 10 additional buses on X90 line

Unfortunately, we won't be seeing these short term transportation improvements any time soon. However, I remain committed to the long term goal of reducing traffic and improving air quality in our city and will continue to work with our city's elected leadership to advance those goals.

Thank you for taking the time to contact me on this issue. I heavily weighed your views, and those of my other constituents, in formulating my position. As always, please feel free to contact me with any specific questions about this or any other issue facing our city.

Sincerely,
JESSICA LAPPIN
Council Member
5th District - Manhattan

Yesterday we heard that Assembly Member Deborah Glick's office told a constituent the congestion pricing bill could lead to worsening air quality. (Because, you know, building mass transit infrastructure will cancel out all the particulate pollution that pricing will keep out of the air.)

If Glick ends up basing her decision on that tortured logic, here's a look at what she would deny her district [PDF], according to the Campaign for New York's Future:

• 46 new subway cars, primarily for the E and F lines
• 3 additional buses for the M20/M104 Routes
• 5 additional buses for the M101/102/103 Routes
• 6 additional buses for the M15 Route
• 9 additional buses for the M1/M2/M3/M4 Routes

Those are just the short-term enhancements that will be implemented before congestion pricing goes into effect. (And it's worth repeating that the data comes from CFNY's district fact sheets, an excellent tool to help bolster your argument when you call your reps.)

Glick's district, which falls entirely within the congestion zone, also stands to benefit enormously from the most obvious result of congestion pricing: less traffic. Lower Manhattan will see a 33.2 percent reduction in extreme traffic jams and a 6.4 percent reduction in overall traffic, according to DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

And it goes without saying that a very small minority of Glick's constituents would actually pay the fee. Only 3.2 percent drive alone outside the zone as part of their commute, according to 2000 Census data.

Brodskyite populist posturing would seem especially out of place in these parts. Only 22.4 percent of households own a car, a low figure even in New York City, and the average income of those households is more than $180,000.

Take Hakeem Jeffries. The Brooklyn assemblyman reportedly has no position on pricing at the moment, but not so long ago he stood with Richard Brodsky in support of the Westchester pricing foe's $6.50 taxi drop charge "alternative."

In addition to system-wide and Brooklyn-specific improvements, here is just some of what residents of Jeffries' district stand to lose without pricing:

• 33 new buses on the B41 line
• Structural overcoating on the B and Q lines between Prospect Park and Sheepshead Bay
• Upgrade of the PA systems in the Bedford-Nostrand, Classon, Clinton-Washington and Fulton Street stations on the G line
• Flooding improvements for the Crosstown Line
• An 8.1% to 22.1% percent reduction in traffic jams

Check your district fact sheets to see what's on the block in your neighborhood. And if you haven't called your reps already, now is the time to pass this information on.