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Ridership Growth Over The Last Decade

Posted by
on March 17th, 2009 at 2:35 am

Unless you have been living under a rock or inside a cave for the last decade, transit ridership has exploded. More & more people are turning to mass transit in New York City & the latest issue of “New York By The Numbers” by the Center for an Urban Future showcases this point. Before we get to the actual report, lets first take a look at a story on the report by Dorian Block of the New York Daily News:

While politicians debate whether or not to rescue the MTA to prevent fare hikes and service cuts, a new report shows the borough had the largest increase in bus ridership in the city over the past five years.
An average of 558,919 people rode the bus in the Bronx on weekdays in 2008, which is 43,840 more people than in 2003, says a report called “Transit Overload” put out by the Center for an Urban Future.

Twenty Bronx subway stations also had 50% or greater increases in riders.

“This shows how dependent this borough is on public transportation. It is extraordinary,” said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future.

“More of the Manhattan workforce has had to move to the outer boroughs. For the most part, new immigrants do not have cars,” he continued. “The rise in congestion and oil prices nationwide and in New York has been pushing people to transit.”

As in past years, the Yankee Stadium, Third Ave. at 149th St. and Parkchester subway stops saw the most riders.

But the station with the largest percentage growth of ridership was Bronx Park East — below Pelham Parkway near the Bronx Zoo — with 2,897 riders passing through daily last year, compared with 1,450 per day in 1998.

Click here for the complete story.

Now lets take a look at some interesting facts from the report:

• 20 of the 22 stations with the largest percentage increase in subway ridership were either in the outer boroughs or in Manhattan north of 96th Street.

• In 2008, 62 stations outside of Manhattan had an average weekday ridership of over 10,000 people, up significantly from 46 stations in 2003 and 36 in 1998.

• More than a quarter of all New York City subway stations—111 out of 425—saw an increase in average weekday ridership of 50 percent or more during the past decade. Brooklyn accounted for nearly half (51) of those stations; there were 28 in Manhattan, 20 in the Bronx and 12 in Queens.

• 13 stations on the L line and nine on the N line were among the 50 fastest growing stations citywide. Other lines with several stations on the top-50 list: the 2 (seven stations), 3 (six stations), F (five stations), J (five stations) and M (five stations).

Click here to view and/or download the complete report (.pdf)

I had a chance to read a bit of the report & the statistics do not surprise me at all. Many areas in NYC have underwent or are in the process of gentrification. So with such improvements bringing in new people, ridership had nowhere to go but up.

This is the kind of report that should be printed out & thrown in the face of leaders in Albany. They need to understand that regardless of past MTA transgressions & poor choices by them in partnership with Albany, that they must do what is right for the people. Hopefully reports like this will get through to people who continue to not come up with legitimate fixes for the MTA’s financial crisis. Am I & millions of others asking for too much? I know the answer but does Albany? Only time will tell…..

xoxo Transit Blogger

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Albany Continues To Not Get It Or Even Care

Posted by
on March 17th, 2009 at 12:58 am

The countdown, to a possible transit doomsday for millions is sitting at 8 days. With the date looming, State Senate leaders are expected to release their plan to help the MTA from having to enact their “doomsday scenario“. Lets take a look at the plan in this report from the New York Times’ Nicholas Cofessore and William Neuman:

A proposal to add tolls to bridges over the East and Harlem Rivers to help finance the beleaguered Metropolitan Transportation Authority appears to be dead in the State Senate, as the Democratic majority is preparing to offer on Tuesday a scaled-back, short-term alternative to bail out the authority, two people briefed on that plan said.

Long the third rail of interborough politics in New York City, the tolls were at the heart of a comprehensive plan drafted by Richard Ravitch, a former authority chairman, to stave off severe service cuts and fare increases for the city’s subways and buses.

But after weeks of debate and deliberation, several Democratic senators from Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx remain adamantly opposed to the tolls. And with Democrats holding a bare 32-30 majority in the Senate, and Republicans refusing to provide any votes for the plan, the Senate majority leader, Malcolm A. Smith, has been forced to come up with an alternative plan that could win enough support to pass in his chamber, said one of the two people briefed on the plan. The two people insisted on anonymity because the proposal was not complete.

The Senate proposal, which was presented privately to Democratic Senators on Monday afternoon, includes a 4 percent fare increase, half of what Mr. Ravitch had proposed. It would also impose a tax of 25 cents on every $100 of payroll on employers within the 12 counties served by the authority. That is significantly less than the 34 cents that Mr. Ravitch had proposed.

“The immediate impact would be, all service cuts are restored, fare increases would be cut in half, and there would be no tolls,” said one of the two people briefed on the plan.

Senate staff members have not finished calculating how much revenue their plan would generate. However, it would be far less than Mr. Ravitch’s plan, requiring lawmakers to return to the issue again within months. But one of the two people who were briefed said that since the authority’s capital spending plan was already financed through the end of this year, Senate Democrats believed there was time to return later to find a more comprehensive solution.

Mr. Ravitch has insisted that any short-term or stopgap solution would only exacerbate the authority’s fiscal woes and create a bigger budget hole next year. In an interview last week, Mr. Ravitch said that the defeat of his plan would be “disastrous to the economy and the people of the M.T.A. region.” Mr. Ravitch declined to comment Monday night on the Senate’s counterproposal, saying he did not know the details.

The Ravitch plan was designed to spread the fiscal pain by requiring financial contributions from several groups. Businesses would pay a payroll tax. Riders would pay an 8 percent fare increase. And drivers would pay new bridge tolls.

The rationale was that all three groups should pay because they all benefited from the transit system, including drivers, who would find roads heavily congested without it. Mr. Ravitch hoped his plan would command wide support and head off critics who might complain that one group or another was being singled out.

Click here for the complete report.

Congratulations to our State Leaders for once again showing how inept they really are. While people might assume I am happy at something potentially being done, it could not be further from the truth. As I have said in the past, I am a believer in either getting the job done right or not at all. This proposal does nothing but push the “doomsday scenario” back for a period of time. This is not what is needed as the problems have to be addressed in the present, not the future.

Please do not think I looked forward to possibly paying near 10% more for my rides. However I rather have done that & just gotten it over with as compared to paying 4% now & possibly paying much more later if the real problems are not taken care of. This is just like going to the doctor & getting a shot. Some people squirm or want it done slowly. I am the exact opposite, I look right at the needle & watch it go in on the initial try. No, I am not into needles or partake in any activities with them, I just know it needs to get done so why prolong the process if it is not necessary.

I sincerely hope that Gov. Patterson & others lead the charge for a more legitimate plan as this just won’t cut it in the long haul. Permanent solutions are the only way to go regardless of how good the temporary ones might seem.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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1

State Senate Leaders Must Save The MTA

Posted by
on March 16th, 2009 at 12:58 am

The news front was quiet this weekend in the world of transit considering the financial crisis going on. Sunday’s New York Daily News had a strong editorial about how State Senate leaders must save the MTA:

State Sen. Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and his Democratic colleagues stand fairly warned. Unless they change course, they will impose the most backbreaking fare hikes ever on subway, bus and commuter rail riders.

They also will trigger crippling mass transit reductions, including the closure of whole subway and bus lines.

They also will halt track and signal maintenance, not to mention major projects like the Second Ave. subway.

They also will force 1,100 transit layoffs.

That’s this year. Next year, if Smith’s lawmakers fail to approve a Metropolitan Transportation Authority rescue, they will kick the fare higher, make service reductions deeper and cost more transit workers’ jobs.

The MTA is in dire straits, thanks to the state’s long failure to provide adequate support and to the national economic meltdown. And the picture is worse than had been imagined.

Smith needs to take a cue from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has the vision and courage to back an MTA rescue. Silver sized up the numbers, as developed by a commission headed by former MTA chairman Richard Ravitch, and saw, correctly, that the pain of tolls and taxes is unavoidable.

Click here for the complete editorial.

The message conveyed in this piece is nothing new from what many of us have been saying. However the message is so important that it needs to be hammered home until Albany wakes up, starts to give a damn, or both, to the realty of this crisis. The lives of millions will change for the worst in 9 days unless Albany does the right thing. Will they?…….. I have my doubts but this is one time I hope I am completely wrong.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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0

Service Diversions 03-13

Posted by
on March 13th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

I have just updated the service diversions page with the latest scheduled diversions for this weekend & next week (and beyond in some cases). Don’t forget to check in for any changes to the page. I also suggest printing out a copy of the page to use while riding the system.

Also a friendly reminder to any of my readers who plan on using the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) this weekend. The Valley Stream track work program (which is affecting 5 branches) will continue this weekend. So click here for complete details on how this may affect you.

Have a safe & wonderful weekend!

xoxo Transit Blogger

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2

MTA Board Paints A Grim Financial Picture

Posted by
on March 13th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

As I mentioned earlier, the MTA Board held a special meeting to discuss worst case scenarios in case a financial bailout of sorts does not materialize. It was safe for one to assume that the details which were to come from the meeting would be of a dire nature. If you did assume this, you were correct on all counts. The MTA Board painted a grim financial future which Sewell Chan of the New York Times has more on in this report:

With the State Senate balking on a financial rescue plan that would impose tolls on East River and Harlem River bridges to help close a mounting budget gap, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority warned on Friday that if Albany does not act by March 25, they will have no choice but to order steep fare increases, impose “painful” service cuts and lay off at least 1,100 employees.

“The situation is dire,” the authority’s chairman, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, said at a meeting of the authority’s board. He described “25 to 35 percent increases in the cost of getting to work” and “serious and painful cuts in service.”

The Friday board meeting was in large part held to place pressure on Albany to act.

“The Legislature has not been able to reach an agreement on the Ravitch commission recommendation or any other solution on the M.T.A.’s fiscal crisis,” Mr. Hemmerdinger said. “It’s too soon to know what will happen, but with the March 25 board meeting rapidly approaching, it’s time for the board to refocus on the tough decisions that will have go be made to keep our budget balanced.”

Before the board began its deliberations, transit advocates testified for about 40 minutes, telling the board the situation was grave.

Click here for the complete report.

I can’t say I am surprised by any of the news coming out from this meeting. Regardless of the idiocy thought up by those like Malcolm Smith, the March 25th deadline is very real. The impact of the decisions made that day will have an affect on millions of tri-state area residents for years to come. This is a very serious time around these parts & our “so-called” leaders do not seem or care to grasp that. It is a shame that the ultimate screwjob will most likely come down to the people who are “so-called” leaders serve. However isn’t this what you have come to expect from within NY? As a life long New Yorker, I have.

xoxo Transit Blogger

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