Here are the MTA’s fare-hike proposals. The authority is expected to choose one of the four proposals in December, and possibly set the hikes in motion by March. There will be public hearings between now and then. Which one would you choose?
ALMOST THERE: Some N/R train stations now have countdown clocks!
Starting June 10, the M.T.A. plans to run 16 more round-trip trains on weekdays (off peak and on peak), 11 more on Saturdays and seven more on Sundays.
Ride the NYC subway?
Meet the boss of your commute: MTA chairman Joe Lhota
Lhota, a lifelong conservative Republican, was “installed by a governor who doesn’t much care about transit to straighten out the finances and public image of an authority that is a political pinata, all while keeping the trains running on time.”
In his first 100 days, he has:
- Implemented Fastrack, a program that shuts down entire subway lines for a series of evenings to increase repair efficiency
- Argued the case for public investment in transportation
- Loudly resisted the House of Representative’s efforts to cut the gas tax
- Traveled to Albany seven times to discuss transit issues with the executive and legislative branch, and where he lobbied alongside Transport Workers Union head John Samuelsen
- “Compared to Jay Walder, who literally never met with the transportation or civic groups that cared about the M.T.A., he met with me individually and some other people individually,” said Gene Russianoff, staff attorney for the Straphangers Campaign. “He’s very direct. There’s really no B.S.”
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to send a markup of the transportation bill to the floor, and if passed by the House and Senate and approved the president — a tall order indeed — the bill could rob New York City of billions of dollars of transit funds.
“The M.T.A. is teetering on the brink of a capital bankruptcy.” - Former Port Authority head Chris Ward
Meet the M.T.A.’s engineer-in-chief Michael Horodniceanu. He is building the next generation of the New York City transit system.
A gothamist link to a f-ing righteous reddit Q/A with an MTA conductor. I read it for at least an hour last night and made sure to say hi to my conductor today.
Good fun.
And servicey (what to do if you fall on the tracks).
Great read!
Katharine Jose visits the No. 7 train extension planners, who have to achieve their aims while working in strict parameters.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority probably gets its fair share of vitriol from New Yorkers, and then some. It’s an easy target: a massive bureaucracy run by an unelected board whose structure, funding and operations are not particularly well-understood by people who don’t deal with transportation policy for a living. Also, most people don’t like commuting.
All of which makes the M.T.A. a particularly inviting issue during campaign season, when candidates, who will inevitably have to answer questions about it, must find something to say that isn’t too nuanced and conveys a politically appropriate level of anger, but makes a limited number of promises about actually changing things, because the fact is the M.T.A. is, at least, functioning.
The seven-way New York Gubernatorial debate, as it happened
Nick Rizzo: Kristin Davis: “The key difference between the MTA and my former escort agency is that I had one set of books and operated with on-time service.”
Alex Pareene: Kristin Davis wants the MTA run more like a brothel.
Nick: I’m maybe in favor.
Alex: Though auditing the MTA seems to miss the point, which is that it’s underfunded by … Albany.
Nick: But what kind of pension costs would we end up having to pay piano players if they belonged to the Transit Worker’s Union?
