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Dig out that reading list, load your iPod up, and get ready to lose that teeny sense of "personal space" while commuting - the MTA wants $20 million in service cuts as part of a way to deal with its huge, looming budget deficits. And we're talking deficits of $905 million in 2008, $1.13 billion in 2009, $1.48 billion in 2010. The NY Times reports how the cut could manifest themselves in our everyday lives:
The cuts would add one to five minutes to wait times on many subway lines and local bus routes during off-peak periods. For subways, it would mean that on weekdays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., all trains would run every 10 minutes, according to authority budget documents. Evening and late-night waiting times would be from 10 to 20 minutes.Okay, so, take those numbers, which we feel are pretty optimistic on some lines, and multiply that by 2 or 3, and you'll get the real waiting time. And as much as reading is fundamental, no one wants to be able to read that much on the subway platform. The cuts amount to about $5 million for the subways and $15 million for buses, which can only mean you'll never find that bus you want, and when you do, it'll be crazy crowded.
The budget is being reviewed by the MTA board members, and already one tells the Times he will fight it. Barry Feinstein (our new best friend!) says, "These are substantial service cuts. That is not what I want to see, particularly at a time when our ridership is higher than ever and we have busy crowded subways in the middle of the night.” Further, Feinstein adds, "I am not of the view that making a $5 million cut in the subways with headway [subway wait time] is going to have any impact on a billion-dollar budget deficit.” No kidding! How about selling the West Side Railyards for what it's worth, if you're selling it? This is time for some government intervention - not that Pataki can hear us.
If they get passed, these will be the biggest service cuts in years for the subways and buses. The NY Times does note that "The authority declined to identify specific subway and bus routes that would be affected by the cuts" (though we'll guess it'll affect outer-borough service the most). And the subway fare will go up next year.
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So, i guess that low-ball asking price for Atlantic Yards still makes sense, eh?
How can we trust anything the MTA says? They get busted left and right for lying. Didn't they get caught having two sets of books? I don't believe anything they say and I'm sure a fare hike isn't necessary. Spitzer needs to rewrite the public authority laws in this state and end this BS and make it an agency that runs well and transparently.
Roo, selling assets to pay for an operating budget shortfall is a short term fix at best. It's only slightly better than borrowing the money.
It's time to add another tax bracket for people making more than $500,000 a year. And another for anything over $1 million. Then hike the property tax for any housing unit over 2000 sq ft. And bring on the congestion pricing on cars. And make city residents pay the parking tax.
Three words.
Get... a... SCOOTER!
:-)
It's almost starting to make sense to own a car or risk your life biking in this city. Only an agency like the MTA could figure out a way to not successfully manage one of the most important subway systems in the world.
great, I already wait forever for the R line in Brooklyn late nights and on weekends!
SOLUTION: Implode the "L" line; double benefit includes keeping all the hipsters in Brooklyn.
I use my feet as transportation. I figure if it takes me an hour to ride the subway home, but an hour-and-fifteen minutes to walk home, then I should just walk.
Walking is a good idea. Great for health too.
It takes me only 15 more minutes to walk from 34th Street to West 4th Street then it does to ride the stinky subway. Plus, if I get tired/bored sometimes a bus drives by and I can just hope on that. And it's far nicer than riding 1/2 hour with someone's crotch in your face.
Whose idiotic idea was it to give away $50 million for all those free rides last holiday season? They should have saved all the money for the deficits. Fire all of the idiots in the MTA budget office and hire some people worth their weight.
It is the unions fault! They screamed while fighting for their contract that the MTA had huge amounts of money in the bank and major surpluses coming up and they wanted a piece of it, now it looks like they should give it back. The airlines are stumbling and going bankrupt because of union workers and the pensions they must service and now the MTA is heading in the same direction. You can't say they aren't when they pay people close to 50,000 a year to sweep up the platforms. I say de-unionize and make the subway a city agency that runs as a not for profit. All surplus funds would be credited directly to the consumer and or service upgrades. The workers can kiss their kushy jobs goodbye and actually live in the real world without 'mommy' MTA.
Better yet re: the whole union issue...just replace all the platform sweepers with hyper-Roombas and automate the trains. Union problem solved!
Pataki defunded the MTA dramatically in his first budget. Since then, they've been borrowing to finance capital improvements. Now that Pataki is leaving, they can open the kimono and reveal what years of underfunding and borrowing have done: on-going deficits from financing debt.
money money everywhere- that is absurd.
"Walking is a good idea. Great for health too. It takes me only 15 more minutes to walk from 34th Street to West 4th Street then it does to ride the stinky subway."
Most people in NYC simply don't have a walkable commute. I like a long walk as much as the next person but, let's face it, it's a bitch if you have to get dressed up for work.
Could the MTA be run any worse? It's like they are purposefully making the worst decisions possible, at all times. I don't know if they are completely out of touch ewith reality or if there is something underhanded afoot that is making them act so ridiculously.
I agree; sweeping changes need to be made to knock it back into shape. Things are seriously out of hand. Thier handling of money is unbeleiveable. Besides thier promise to add "wait times" to the platforms, I don't think they've had one good idea in the last 5 years.
I agree with Samantha on this one - I'd walk from 34th to 4th, but my commute from 143rd to Wall St. every morning in 3" heels would mean I'd be leaving at about 3:30 in the morning to get to work, only to arrive home around 11 or so in the evening with unbelievably tired feet. If I lived on 4th St, I'd talk about walking much more often - but until then, it's me and the 1 train.
ahh....
only on gothamist can a poster say something similar to "i like to walk..." and have two people take it as a personal attack on their commuting time. i mean, obviously it is not for everyone. do we really need to debate that?
that being said... the mta gets worse every year. the free rides last winter were such a load of b.s. and now we are paying the price.
yet another reason to encourage all candidates currently bidding for local and state offices to make sustainable infrastructure developments a gddmnd priority for the city. as we all know too well, the MTA is a prime example of the mediocrity sliding towards incompetence as status quo way of things in these horsepoop public/private ventures. The question is: how to the public get to the board members and how do the public get to the beurocrats? the whole lot of them need pressure from the consumer (which is insane, really, given that this is a service-based enterprise they run) and a good shaking. Development, innovation, and legitimate planning need to be required immediately.
if theres anyting the MTA needs to do better with its fixing/improving current lines and bus service in the outer borroughs. routes through brooklyn, queens, the bronx, SI need improvement, given cost of living and congestion increases in the last few years. If the city council is sooooo thrilled to promote rezoning (in N. Brooklyn, downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, etc) they need to be forced to consider the infrastructure developments that must come along side. (i.e. if someone wants to build a 15 story pillar of concrete off Lorimer Street, they should be asked to kick in some cash to ensure better L service and improved consistancy of the B48 route.) Perhaps this problem points to an increased need for arbitration or atleast improved communication on the interrelation of developers, government agencies, and public advocates.
And if we're going to get cute about silly projects preventing people from getting about town...how about how much money is being spent on directing LIRR trains to GCT...
I think #4 and #13 are geniuses--a lot of blame lies at the feet of state gov't, which gives preference to highways over mass transit. And yes, the very very wealthy are grossly undertaxed.
The MTA stinks, too--at the last fare hike, the financial records had to be SUBPOENAD by the city. And the MTA is a public agency!
Just this morning my F train stopped at second avenue, mind you the train was PACKED to the brim with Brooklyn commuters ..so here she goes the train announcer says " The V Train on the opposite will leave first." as if all the people in the train should get out of the train walk to the opposite end of the train platform go up i.ke 3 sets of stairs and walk over to the over platform ...If you seen 2nd ave station you know what im talking about. Then the train proceded to sit in the station PACKED while the empty V train left the station on the other platform. These are the kind of people working for MTA and I dont think the ones in the offices are any brighter.
Basically they need to bust the unions, fire the imcompetent scruges, and make this into the most transparent agency in the city. Ridership is at an all time high, the agency is flush with cash..
And all this while the trains and stations are as dirty as ever, more crowded as ever.
Where is all the money going?
We need more trains more often esp outside of rush hour. The MTA is proposing less trains less often esp outside of rush hour.
Personally, I could put up with the hot dirty stations and rude unconcerned MTA employees if we had more trains more often esp outside of rush hour.
(Pataki defunded the MTA dramatically in his first budget. Since then, they've been borrowing to finance capital improvements. Now that Pataki is leaving, they can open the kimono and reveal what years of underfunding and borrowing have done: on-going deficits from financing debt.)
Right. AND they enhanced the pensions, and underfunded them. AND the city cut off assistance to New York City Transit. AND the fare was cut dramatically, relative to inflation (and substantially even without adjustments due to discounts) from 1995 to 2002. Everything passed the state legislature without a single no vote.
Everyone was fat and happy. The cost was deferred to YOUR future. Which will soon be the rest of your life.
It isn't just the MTA. How about the federal debt? How about those senior benefits I may never see, and most of those reading this site will certainly never see? How about the $5.5 billion or so borrowed for operating costs thus far during the Bloomberg Administration, and all the debts Giuliani piled up? What about all the money the state is borrowing in this year's budget?
I'm going to say it again: borrowing to pay for capital improvements is ok, borrowing to cover operating expenses is bad.
You borrow money to buy a house. You don't borrow to buy your groceries (unless you pay off your credit card every month).
i am agreeing with the "new taxes" lines of reasoning.
raise the gas tax, implement a congestion charge, what are we waiting for?
Amen, #18.
Jeez, I wasn't insulting anyone, I just said I found that walking was my alternative to the subway. I'll stop walking, okay?
PS: I don't live by W 4th at all.
This is a PERFECT opportunity to institute a tax on those damn Critical Mass bikers.
As for the service cuts... I can live with a 5% rate hike. Why cant they institute that now and save us the cuts?
Walking et al. - wasn't taking your observation as a personal attack in the least. I just find the "Hey, just walk!" solution (which I know you weren't proposing - you were just the closest poster) to a city-wide transportation problem irritating. I shouldn't have singled you out, though.
We pay a disproportionate amount of tax down here the city. Albany takes the money out of NYC by the truckload b/c this is where the money is in this state. In return we get almost nothing. How about Albany maybe pump a little bit of money into us getting to work since they reap the rewards of the NYC work force in the form of these tax coffers. I guess the money is better earmarked to build little Joey a new little league somehwere upstate.
This is not to say the MTA is without blame. They are pigs. They don't give a crap about their riders. The incomeptence you see from the rank and file conductors, ticket booth folks is magnified further up the chain I am sure. Most of these people are lucky to have jobs. Recently on a 7 train from LIC back into Manhattan I watched a conductor throw chicken bones out the window of the train onto the platform. How is this acceptable. As you can imagine the guy that hired him is a moron and his boss and his bosse's boss ad infinitum.
(We pay a disproportionate amount of tax down here the city. Albany takes the money out of NYC by the truckload b/c this is where the money is in this state.)
Regional equity is the small issue here. Generational equity is the big one. Until people can see that theme across all the issues, fiscal child abuse will continue.
If we had a bridge in northern Greenpoint, I'd walk in a heartbeat. The other two are just too far each way, especially if you have to go a significant distance into Manhattan. I'd love to bike, but I don't want my name in the New York Post alongside that awful quote, "...no charges were filed against the driver."
#25, hell yeah let's impose the congestion tax ASAP. Why do all teenagers in every borough need a car anyway? It amazes me that familes will live in shitty apartments yet have some kind of tricked out car in front of the building (I don't know if it's part of that "American Dream" thing, since a lot of them happen to be immigrants). Granted, I too had a car as a teenager, but I lived in an area where it was actually NECESSARY to own one to get from point A to point B.
First, audit the shit out of the MTA and throw the incompetents out. Next, impose that congestion tax.
So.....What else is new? Why does the MTA cut services and raise the fares?(you might ask yourself)....simple,because they can, that's why. The MTA knows it holds the monopoly on city transportation, so they make all these kinds of BS reasons to raise fares and cut services. Who ever doesn't like it can take a cab or walk. There's just too much of a BIG PROFIT to be made. The sky's the limit when it comes to pay raises and bonuses for the MTA executives. The MTA squanders the millions of dollars on itself, then turns to the public to make up the deficit. So now they want to make all these big cuts in services.......AND THE ABUSE CONTINUES!!!
if the MTA is cutting back service from subways why are they adding service to the Metro North then?
This winter/spring Metro North added 2 more trains on the Hudson Line.
The MTA has been favoring Metro-North over the subways for many years. Also, they favor the Lines of Metro- North that run entirly in New York State, the line that runs into Connecticut, Grand Central to New Haven line, has been starved for funding. It has 30 year old broken down rail cars, while the Westchester lines get nice new trains. This, despite the fact that the New Haven Line is the more heavily traveled line.
Why don't they just start charging more and give out free Metrocards to the same people that get food stamps?
Blah,
The New Haven line gets a good portion of its funding from the state of Connecticut. They've been reluctant to pony up the cash. That's why the New Haven line suffers. If CT would share in the cost then they'd have nice new cars already.
The infrastructure is crumbling. The service is a disgrace. The stations are filthy. There are workers, like Mr. John Koort, who can't bother to do anything more than press a panic button when someone is being raped. The subway system should be privatized and its workers should not be unionized.