To track New York City’s use of federal stimulus funds for these six projects and beyond, visit the NYCStat Stimulus Tracker.

About 1,100 of the authority’s 70,000 employees will be laid off. Fares for commuter rail, subway and bus transit will increase at least 20 percent across the board. Service cuts include the elimination of 35 bus routes and two subway lines, the W and Z. Off-peak and weekend subway, bus and commuter rail service will be cut back. Existing tolls on bridges will also rise.

Still, the MTA had hoped to avoid the draconian measures.

The vote came as legislators at the state capitol in New York have so far failed to act on a plan developed by a panel headed by the MTA’s former chairman, Richard Ravitch, imposing tolls on free East River and Harlem River bridges and creating a new corporate payroll tax to fill the budget gap.

After weeks of debate and deliberation, The New York Times reported, “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…”

That plan, though, comes up too short in adequately addressing the MTA’s budget needs – a deficit of $1.2 billion in operating costs alone. It includes a 4 percent fare increase, half of what Ravitch had proposed, and would impose a tax of 25 cents on every $100 of payroll on employers within the 12 counties served by the authority, significantly less than the 34 cents that Ravitch had proposed.

As a result, with no sufficient alternatives offered by the state legislature – and with no new tolling on drivers – the MTA voted to burden local transit users (who already cover the highest proportion of transit operating expenses in the country) to keep the system from bankruptcy.

A look at the subway fare increase

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York

Last week, Elliot G. Sander, executive director of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York, announced that the authority would likely receive between $1.5 billion and $2 billion of federal stimulus money. Like so many other transit agencies around the country, the nation’s largest transit authority is in the midst of a severe budget crisis and is facing a $1.2 billion deficit. Its doomsday scenario includes threats of service cuts and layoffs. So, even though the stimulus money must be spent on capital improvements and not on operational costs, it is anxiously anticipated. Sander gave a preview of how the MTA plans to spend those dollars.

$497 million – a third of the MTA’s stimulus money – would be spent on the erection of an architecturally-stunning glass building atop the Fulton Street transit hub. This will be the final touch to a project eight years in the making and meant to simplify a tangle of subway stations close to the World Trade Center site. In Sander’s words: “The pavilion [will be] a highly visible portal to a modern transportation complex.” Budget overruns postponed the completion of the glass dome and left the neighborhood with an unsightly hole in the ground. Understandably, local businesses and neighbors are excited that the Fulton Street station may finally be completed.

However, a closer look at Sander’s plans raises the question of whether the implementation of the stimulus bill will bring about “the end of the culture of anything goes” and launch a new era of responsible spending. Critics of the Fulton Street project argue that the MTA has mismanaged the project from the get-go and do not deserve additional federal dollars. They also point to the fact that Sander must convince the New York State Assembly that the MTA will need a cash infusion soon, or else its doomsday scenario will come true.

The Fulton Street station is located in the district of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Was Sander’s decision to give priority to the Fulton Street station politically motivated? Will the $497 million spent on the station generate the promised 15,000 jobs for New York State? Will the thirty-two other “shovel-ready” MTA transit projects on Governor Paterson’s wish list get their fair share of stimulus money?

To be continued…

Sources: change.gov, New York Daily News, New York Post, The New York Times

The gas rush could make some Pennsylvanians rich. But, it could also pollute the state’s air and water as the gas-grab can put serious stress on a community’s infrastructure.

And, that’s set up a conflict between natives of the area and weekenders — mostly New Yorkers — who own second homes there. Blueprint America — with Weekend America — goes to Northeastern Pennsylvania to look into what’s pitting neighbor against neighbor in what could unsettle the area’s infrastructure.

[Transcript]

Over the past few years, prospectors have been combing the hills of Pennsylvania. They aren’t looking for gold – instead, the mineral that’s setting off the frenzy is shale. It’s known as the Marcellus Shale, it lies a mile or more below ground, and it’s full of natural gas – maybe enough to fuel the entire United States for two years.

The “gas rush” could make some Pennsylvanians rich. But it could also pollute the state’s air and water. And that’s set up a conflict between natives of the area and “weekenders” – mostly New Yorkers – who own second homes there.

Bill Bryant’s family moved to Damascus Township, Pennsylvania close to a hundred and seventy years ago – in 1841. I observe that that means he has pretty deep roots there. “Yeah, they cleared the land here,” he laughs. “They were Connecticut Yankees.”

It’s gorgeous land – pretty much the definition of “bucolic” – with lush, gentle hills and a view of the Catskill Mountains in the distance. Bryant’s a dairy farmer. But he’s also watching a gas company – slowly – move into the area.

“That whole side hill over there is signed up with Cheaspeake,” he says, gesturing to the north. “And like I say, the guy across the road is signed up with Cheaspeake. The guy across the road probably only signed for $1,400. And that guy” — he gestures back to the north — “signed for a couple thousand. But they did get up to about $2,800 here.”

That’s how much the gas companies were paying per acre just as a signing bonus. At that rate, Bryant would’ve earned $728,000 on his 260 acres. And once the wells started pumping gas from under his land, he’d earn a percentage of the revenues.

But he didn’t sign – in part because he and his family have questions about the environmental impact of drilling.

Here’s why: The fuel’s actually trapped in little pockets in the shale. Tom Murphy of the Penn State Cooperative Extension says that to get the gas OUT of those pockets, energy companies use a technique called hydraulic fracturing — forcing millions of gallons of water into bore-holes at extremely high pressure to break open the brittle shale. Then the gas companies pump sand into the holes; the grains prop open the tiny cracks in the rock. Once the water gets pumped out, the gas can flow up to the surface – and ultimately to your furnace.

The thing is, energy companies aren’t pumping just water and sand into the ground. The fluid that they use is actually a soup that contains scores of chemicals – and some of those ingredients are toxic. They can cause brain and kidney damage, even cancer. And environmentalists say, given the track record of operations like this in Texas and across the West, there’s almost no oversight when it comes to disposing of the fluid. So it might end up in the water table, or in lakes and streams, or even evaporating. And because of those risks, they want the drilling to stop.

Every weekend, Joe Levine and Jane Ciphers leave their home in Brooklyn for a barn that they converted into a weekend home not far from Bryant’s farm. It’s where the anti-drilling movement meets to talk strategy.

Levine and Ciphers helped organize a group called Damascus Citizens for Sustainability. A lot of locals think they’re nothing but NIMBYs. But Pat Carullo, another of the group’s organizers, said there’s something much bigger at stake. “This is not our back yard. This is the drinking water source for 15 million Americans.”

As he talks, he gestures out a wall of windows in Levine and Ciphgers’ weekend home with a sweeping view of the Delaware River a couple hundred feet downhill. New York City’s reservoirs are upstream, and Philadelphia and Wilmington tap the Delaware Watershed downstream.

The locals say they understand that – that, as farmers, they’re well aware of the environmental risks, and they’re trying to minimize them. They accuse the city people of being condescending, treating them like ignorant rubes. They say it’s like the two sides aren’t even speaking the same language.

Pat Carullo says he knows what language he’s speaking “I’m speaking English. I don’t exactly know what language someone might be speaking who says, ‘We understand that the gas and oil industry is operating under total Federal deregulation, we understand that there’s going to be a catastrophic result from thousands of gas wells in a watershed which is protected by a sitting act of Congress, and we’re going to proceed anyway.’ I don’t understand – that doesn’t seem to me like English.”

The locals also say that the gas companies are in Pennsylvania to stay; that drilling is inevitable. But Barbara Arrindell – another organizer of Damascus Citizens – says nothing is inevitable. “The inevitability of someone who was born into an African-American, a Negro, or whatever terminology of dark skin – in this country – it was inevitable that they were going to be a slave,” she argues. “Now, that’s not the case today.”

“But it took a war to establish that,” I say.

“Well, it might take a war to do this,” she snaps back, and her fellow environmentalists laugh. “If someone’s only looking at what’s gonna go in [their] pocket, and [they] don’t care about anything else, then that’s the language that they might have to understand – that they will be sued. That there are costs involved in this beyond what is just going to go into their pocket.”

A lot of the farmers in the area just roll their eyes when you mention the Damascus Citizens. They see the environmentalists as carpetbaggers who just don’t understand farm life. Some of the group’s members are “weekenders”; others live in the area full-time. But most of its leaders are New Yorkers – city people. They’re part of a wave of city people who’ve been moving into the area for years now. As they buy and build homes, property taxes rise. And it gets harder to run dairy farms.

Bill Bryant, the farmer whose family’s been working the land here for nearly a hundred seventy years, says he’s tried to adapt to the changes by opening an artisanal cheesemaking operation. But not without some misgivings. “I’m personally maybe a little bit anti-city-people,” he says. “but the cheese thing works better with the city people. So we’re trying to take advantage of what’s happened in the area. Because the trend in dairy farmers is just to keep getting bigger, and we’re almost the biggest in the county now and we don’t wanna get any bigger, so at that point you gotta look to do something else.”

Fort some of his neighbors, “something else” comes down to two choices: Either sign a gas lease … or sell off the land. “And those places are basically in jeopardy of being subdivided, and somebody from the city would get a hold of them,” he says. “So are we better off with those places subdivided and more city people in the area, or are we better off with the people who’ve been here a hundred years keeping those tracts in the family and getting some money from gas to pay their taxes and keep the land? I don’t know which is worse.”

Bill Bryant has time to make up his mind: Gas companies have cut back on signing new leases thanks to the economy. Meanwhile, else where in Pennsylvania drilling’s already taking place. Its opponents are lobbying lawmakers to stop it before it goes any farther.

# # #

There’s a gaping hole in our recent story on how the economic crisis may affect New York City’s transit system: We failed to point out that the fare in New York is cheaper than those in many other major cities. Which means that maybe bridge tolls and a new payroll tax shouldn’t be the only new revenue proposals on the table.

Let’s look at how public transit hits commuters’ wallets:

New Yorkers now pay $2, at most, for a single ride. That’s exactly what commuters in Chicago pay and more than riders in Boston. It’s also more than the minimum fares in Washington, DC and the Bay Area. But those systems charge fares that depend on the length of the ride – the farther you go, the more you pay – and so most riders in those cities pay more than the minimum. Commuters in the Washington area can pay up to $4.50, while those in the Bay Area can shell out as much as $8 for a single ride.

New York fares look like even more of a bargain when you check out the cost of riding public transit in some European cities. Riders in London can pay about $4.75 to go to the very next stop. The ride that I took to graduate school every day – which was shorter than my daily commute from Brooklyn to Channel Thirteen in Manhattan – can cost a Londoner $6.00.

Commuters in Paris and Berlin also pay more than New Yorkers – $2.23 and $2.92, respectively, at today’s exchange rate. And Berlin uses a zoned system, which means that’s the least you’ll pay to ride the S- or U-Bahn.

Of course, most riders on most of these systems don’t pay full fare all the time – there are transfers, bulk tickets, passes, even smart cards like London’s Oyster Card that automatically calculate the cheapest fare for whatever combination of rides you’ve taken over the course of a day. The New York Times offered up a great graphic to look at the actual cost of riding many large U.S. public transit systems, the cost of poroviding each ride, and how much of each system’s income actually comes from fares.

According to that Times graphic, even with the low fare, New Yorkers pay a higher proportion of the cost of running the MTA than commuters in any major U.S. urban area except the Bay Area. People we interviewed while researching our story said it’d be great if Albany – and Washington – coughed up more subsidy money. But that’s unlikely. Many of our sources also admitted that fares have to go up – maybe even significantly, even to London-like levels. But that process is politically fraught – no politician wants to run as a supporter of $4 subway fares. The Ravitch Commission’s report includes proposals to make the fare-increase process easier – automatic, in fact, based on the cost of living. That’d go some way towards bringing the MTA more revenue at the fare box, but New Yorkers will still probably be getting a bargain every time they swipe their MetroCards.

In order to pay for subway maintenance and projects over the years, the MTA has had to borrow a lot of money for funding. So much so that the MTA is now the fifth biggest debtor in the United States – after the state of California, the state of Massachusetts, New York State, and New York City.

Blueprint America looks at the costs of maintaining New York City’s transportation system and the difficulties involved when making improvements.

About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation’s rail riders live in New York City and its suburbs. And the cost to maintain one of the world’s most extensive mass transit systems is expensive. Each new subway car, for example, costs $1.4 million. Replacing and maintaining tracks runs the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) about $303 million a year.

In order to pay for subway maintenance and projects over the years, the MTA has had to borrow a lot of money for funding. So much so that the MTA is now the fifth biggest debtor in the United States – after the state of California, the state of Massachusetts, New York State, and New York City.

Blueprint America looks at the costs of maintaining New York City’s transportation system and the difficulties involved when making improvements. ]]> http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/america-in-gridlock/video-the-wrong-track/272/feed/ 7 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/america-in-gridlock/timeline-the-wrong-track-the-greatest-subway-new-york-never-built/276/ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/america-in-gridlock/timeline-the-wrong-track-the-greatest-subway-new-york-never-built/276/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:16:27 +0000 tom mcnamara http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/?p=276 1920s-1930s 1940s-1950s 1960s-1970s 1980s-present

THE PROPOSAL: 1920s-1930s
1920	New York City Mayor John F. Hylan and other city officials call for a new subway line on the East Side of Manhattan. Daniel L. Turner of the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) publishes the “Proposed Comprehensive Rapid Transit System.” Phase I of the plan – build Sixth and Eighth Avenue lines. Phase II of the plan – build Second Avenue Trunk line.
1922	The Turner papers are updated. The Second Avenue line is revised to be six tracks wide with a short eight track connection to Queens. The line is to connect with the Grand Concourse branch of Phase I, and two tracks continuing under the East River to the Fulton Street line. Estimated cost – $165 million.
1925	Phase I is under way.
1929	An expanded proposal is made to build the Second Avenue line from Houston Street to the Harlem River. Estimated cost – $86 million. This includes a turnoff at 34th Street, a 34th Street Crosstown Subway and an East River tunnel to Queens; a turnoff at 63rd Street to connect with the Sixth Avenue line of Phase I; and a connection in the Bronx at Morris Park and Lafayette Ave. Later revision of the Second Avenue line has the six track line from uptown branching off – two tracks to 61st Street (instead of 63rd Street), two to Chambers Street, and two to the Fulton Street Subway. Estimated cost for the 100 mile Phase II system – $438 million. Construction is anticipated to begin in1930, with lines in service sometime between 1938 and 1941. In October, however, the Wall Street stock market crashes. From The New York Times Archive – “100 Miles of Subway in New City Project; 52 of Them in Queens” (September 16, 1929)
1930	The Second Avenue line is expected to be built north from 32nd Street starting in 1931, opening in 1937; and south of 32nd Street starting in 1934, opening in 1940.
1931-1935	As the Depression arrests the city, Phase I construction falls behind. Due to cost overruns for Phase I, plans for the Second Avenue line are postponed. The Phase II plan is then revised – dropping the connection to Fulton Street in Brooklyn by instead connecting the line to the Nassau Street loop. The new proposed opening date is 1948. From The New York Times Archive – “Debt Limit Curbs City Subway Plans” (May 15, 1935)
1939	Estimated cost of the Second Avenue line – $249 million.
DELAYED: 1940s-1950s
1944	The Second Avenue line is back in the planning stage. Ground has still not been broken for the project. New revisions: From Canal Street to 57th Street the line is to be four tracks, with six north of 57th Street (two for a super express to the Bronx); two tracks will be south of Canal Street; connections are planned for the lines from the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges. The plan also calls for a connection in Brooklyn with a major rebuilding of the DeKalb Avenue junction. Estimated cost of the Manhattan segments – $242 million. The proposed opening date is pushed back to 1951.
1947	Subway fares increase from 5 cents to 10 cents, following an $18 million transportation budget shortfall in New York City.
1948	The city’s transportation system loses another $30 million and requests $300 million for rehab and $500 million for capital improvements from the New York legislature. However, the State does not approve to increase in the city’s debt limit.
1949	Estimated cost of the Second Avenue – $504 million. The new R11 “million dollar train” is unveiled as the prototype train to run on the line – 10 stainless steel subway cars, which cost $100,000 each.
1950	The Second Avenue plan is revised to include a two-track turnoff at Seventh Street to 34th Avenue in Queens. Then, the Korean War starts, driving up material costs.
1951	A Bond issue for $500 million is approved. Construction on the Second Avenue line is to begin in 1957 or 1958. From The New York Times Archive – “$500,000 Voted for 2d Ave. Subway By Estimate Board” (September 14, 1951)
1952-1953	Growing city debt causes the Second Avenue line to be postponed, first for three months, then indefinitely by 1953.
1957	Transit Authority Chairman Charles L. Patterson uses most of the $500 million bond issue for improvements to the current system – leaving only $112 million for the Second Ave line. The New York Times reports on Jan 17, 1957, “It is highly improbable that the Second Ave Subway will ever materialize.” From The New York Times Archive – “A 2d Ave. Subway Called Unlikely” (March 9, 1957) A formal hearing is held to investigate the use of funds meant for new construction. Patterson, however, defends his right to spend the bond money on general system improvements.
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GROUND BROKEN?: 1960s-1970s
1963	The Second Avenue line is still planned, but no funds are available.
1964	The Urban Mass Transit Act is passed, making Federal funding available for transit projects.
1965	The Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Authority (MCTA) is founded in New York.
1968	MCTA changed to Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The MTA takes over the city’s subway system, putting the Second Avenue line plan back on track. The Second Avenue line will cost $220 million for a two track line from 34th Street to the Bronx. It would connect with the 63rd Street Tunnel, the Central Park line to 57th Street, Sixth Avenue, and Broadway Avenue. Phase II would bring the line down to Water Street near Battery Park. The New York Board of Estimate approves a two track line from the Bronx to Water Street, including the 63rd St. connection.
1972	October – Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller leads a groundbreaking ceremony with Mayor John V. Lindsay 103rd Street and Second Avenue, and work begins on the first part of the line, from 99th Street to 105th Street. From The New York Times Archive – “Rockefeller and Lindsay Break Ground for 2d Avenue Subway” (October 28, 1972)
1973	March – Construction begins from 110th Street to 120th Street. October – Mayor Lindsay breaks ground for the Second Avenue line’s downtown section.
1974	July – Mayor Abraham D. Beame breaks ground for a fourth segment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. November – After three ground breaking ceremonies and some six decades of stalled proposals for the Second Avenue line, the MTA announces the completion would be delayed – yet again – due to a lack of funds. December – Mayor Beame calls for the constructed tunnel segments to be sealed once work is completed. From The New York Times Archive: “2d Ave. Subway Put Off Further” (December 14, 1974)
1975	Mayor Beam stops work on the fourth tunnel before construction got past the preliminary stage.
SLOW TRAIN COMING: 1980s-present
1980s	No progress, no work.
1996	Some sections have construction activity – Section 5 (Bowery to Chrystie Street), Section 11 (East 99th to East 105th Streets), and Section 13 (East 110th to East 120 Streets).
2007	April – Gov. Elliot Spitzer leads a ground breaking ceremony with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and work begins for an initial phase from 63rd Street to 96th Street. From The New York Times Archive: “Is that finally the sound of the 2nd Ave. Subway?” (April 9, 2007)
2008	And the construction continues.
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Sources: The New York Times, New York Magazine, nycsubway.org

Since the 1920s in New York City, the Second Avenue Subway line has been in the works. Follow the delays, cost overruns, political ineffectiveness, and several ground breakings over the years as the line has still yet to be completed. /wnet/blueprintamerica/files/2008/12/200×1001939_ind_second_system.jpg ]]>

• The Saga of the 2nd Avenue Subway

The following 51st State reports look at the varying modes of transportation in New York City (in 1975).

• Westway: The Solution or the Problem? is an examination of the controversial proposals for the West Side Highway.
• In Getting to the Airport Cheap, reporter Ken Baron takes us on a trip to Kennedy Airport using only public transportation.
• Robert Sam Anson provides commentary in Cars, Cars, Terrible, Wonderful Cars.
• Finally, The Singing Bus Driver profiles a truly unique New Yorker as he tries to make a difference during the daily commute.