Tired of the “please swipe again” message on subway turnstiles? The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced a pilot program to let customers get through the gate quickly and reliably by simply tapping their credit card on a turnstile.

While only a test of a new technology, the pilot program opens possibilities as revolutionary as the MetroCard.

The MTA’s experiment uses an existing technology, the MasterCard PayPass, which is already used at McDonalds, various drugstores and with vendors at the PGA Tour and other sporting events. Citibank MasterCard PayPass credit card holders enrolled in the pilot program will be able to use their credit card or a tag that can be hung on a keychain to zip through the turnstile. In the pilot, every sixth ride will be free as with a pay-per-ride MetroCard. The test is not compatible with unlimited ride passes and will not offer free transfers to buses. Participants will be billed on their monthly credit card bill.

Citibank is footing the cost of installing PayPass readers at 23 stations on the Lexington Avenue line and one station each in Brooklyn and Queens. Only trial participants will be able to use their PayPass-enabled cards or keys in the program. According to the MTA, the test is intended to determine how well the technology works in the New York City subway environment and whether riders would like to use this kind of payment. Experience in Chicago and Washington DC, both of which are far ahead of New York in contact-less fare payment, suggests that riders will flock to more convenient ways to pay the fare. Transit systems in both cities have been offering contact-less “smart cards” for several years. The cards work similarly to a MetroCard in that riders add value to the card at subway stations. There is a $5 fee for purchasing the cards, which can be recharged indefinitely. (The fee has been waived during introductory periods in Chicago.) Like the MasterCard PayPass, smart cards are tapped rather than swiped at the turnstile.

In Washington, over 800,000 plastic rechargeable smart cards have been sold and are used by one-third of Metro rail riders. The cards can also be used on the Metro rail and bus system and at Metro parking lots, and will be expanded to other rail systems in the DC area. DC area riders can now get a Citi MasterCard that doubles as a transit smart card as well. Chicago’s smart cards can be used on the city’s buses and trains and also on the suburban bus system, becoming the first multi-agency smart card in the country. When transit fares paid in cash – but not with smart cards – were raised in January, Chicago’s smart cards became so popular that local retail outlets ran out of them. Even before the fare change, 250,000 smart cards had been issued.

Chicago has two versions of smart card. One version is recharged at subway stations; the other is recharged via the users’ credit card. Like EasyPass tags used to pay bridge and tunnel tolls, Chicago Card Plus accounts can be managed on-line and the account can be automatically replenished when it runs low. The Plus card can be used to pay both per-ride fares and as a 30-day pass. Riders choosing the 30-day option can also “pass back” the card when traveling with others and are charged a separate per-ride fare for those trips.

The PATH system and transit systems in Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Houston, Seattle, Orlando and other cities are in various stages of smart card development and deployment. The PATH system is currently testing its smart card technology in a program that is not directly related to the MTA test.

The smart card systems currently in place or being tested show two approaches to smart card deployment. The primary approach continues the MetroCard concept of having a dedicated transit system payment card that may also be used for parking and other purposes. Like the MetroCard, it requires users to acquire the card and learn how to use it. For regular riders, transit system smart cards offer the convenience of quick entry and all the fare options of plastic fare cards like the MetroCard. Transit system smart cards can be implemented regionally so that travelers need not purchase separate fare media for subway, commuter train, parking lots, etc. As in DC, smart cards can offer the convenience of automatic replenishment.

The MasterCard PayPass is a different and intriguing approach, relying on credit cards that riders may already have in their pocket. It would seem particularly apt for visitors and occasional users who are not likely to want to bother with having a permanent smart card issued by the transit agency. Whether smart cards issued through private banks could or should ever replace the MetroCard – or could have all of the MetroCard’s capabilities such as free transfers and unlimited ride passes – does not seem to be addressed in this pilot.

The two approaches use the same RFID (radio frequency identifiers) technology. The cards use radio frequency to send encrypted account information to readers integrated with the turnstile. The same technology (though different encryption methods) are used by MasterCard, American Express and Visa. Thus, a turnstile programmed to accept MasterCard could also be programmed to accept other credit cards and smart cards issued by transit agencies.

Perhaps the best system would be a combination of transit system-issued smart cards and commercially issued cards. Regular riders would want the dedicated card with the full range of fare payment options. But the visitor could dispense with figuring out the local transit system’s arcane fare rules and just tap their credit card at the turnstile. These riders might not always get the best fare deal, but they probably would not be using the subway enough to want to worry about it.

Either way, the next generation of fare collection technology offers increased convenience and ease of fare payment for transit riders. As is the case now for motorists with E-Zpass, riders will almost never need to think about paying the fare wherever they travel. This will be good for both riders and for transit systems, which are likely to enjoy increased patronage from making their systems easier to use.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

On the third day of last month's transit strike, some New Yorkers found a silver lining in the shutdown of subways and buses. Bicycle traffic had increased by 500 percent. People got more exercise as they walked to work. And some of the emergency traffic rules -- requiring cars entering much of Manhattan to have at least four people, and restricting some avenues for emergency vehicles -- seemed to work.

"Because this strike is teaching us that we are dependent on mass transit, not cars, to travel in and around Gotham, we now have the freedom to rethink our outmoded policies of giving every inch of public space for the exclusive use of private automobiles," wrote Harris Silver of Citystreets in the New York Sun.

New Yorkers are of course happy the strike is over, and most surely hope that, when the vote is completed this week, transit workers will have approved their proposed new contract. But Silver is not alone in believing that something good came out of the strike -- a hint of what New York could do to combat congestion caused by cars and trucks.

Because such congestion pollutes the air, wastes energy, threatens pedestrians and cyclists, and affects the quality of life, a growing number of individuals and organizations say New Yorkers should not have to put up with it anymore. For inspiration many look to London, which three years ago began charging drivers to enter the city's auto-clogged central district during peak hours. (That's not all London has done: See New York Needs A London Plan by Stephen Hammer.) Although Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that such a plan, popularly known as congestion pricing or value pricing, is not on his agenda, advocates still plan to pursue it along with other strategies that might ease traffic throughout the city.

THE PROBLEM

New York City has a low rate of car ownership and remains the one major American city where most people do not even own a car. Almost half of New Yorkers use public transportation to get to work -- about ten times the national average, according to a report (in pdf format) by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Since many others walk or bike, only 360,000 New Yorkers drive cars to get to their jobs. Nevertheless, every weekday some 800,000 cars enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

The city streets almost burst from the strain. "The heart of midtown Manhattan can accommodate only 9,000 moving vehicles without succumbing to gridlock," John Seabrook wrote in the New Yorker in 2002.

And so the average New Yorker who drove at peak hours spent about 50 hours a year in traffic delays in 2003, according to the Texas Transportation Institute's Mobility Survey (in pdf format). It's a lot worse elsewhere. New York ranked (in pdf format) as the 18th most congested urban area in the nation, behind not only such well-known bottlenecks as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. but such smaller areas as Orlando, Florida, and Baltimore, Maryland.

Such statistics provide scant comfort. Congestion creates huge problems here. It fouls the city's air, since trucks, buses and cars create much of New York's smog and soot problem and adds to the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming. The traffic wastes energy and slows buses.

The jams extend beyond Manhattan. One key argument against the Atlantic Yards project is that it would bring the already clogged traffic along Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in downtown Brooklyn to a complete halt. Residents of Staten Island cite as a key problem the severe traffic congestion arising from the borough's rapid growth. The American Automobile Association singles out the exit ramp from the George Washington bridge in upper Manhattan as one of the worst "commuter hot spots" in the entire country, creating traffic jams on the Major Deegan and Cross Bronx Expressways.

AIDING AND ABETTING CONGESTION

At least some of this congestion results from deliberate policies over the years.

Indeed, congestion traditionally has been seen as an indication of urban vitality. To many experts, "a bumper-to-bumper crop of cars is a byproduct of the very prosperity, mobility and individual flexibility modern citizens value: Where traffic is at a standstill, it generally means business is humming," Ann Hulbert recently wrote in the New York Times Magazine.

For decades, Robert Moses, the city's master builder of the 20th century, encouraged cars by building parkways and gearing his projects to drivers instead of bus or subway riders. Planners removed rail track from bridges in favor of more lanes for cars. The Brooklyn Bridge could carry 426,000 people a day in 1907, but only 178,000 in 1988, according to former city traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz. To make matters worse, the city does not charge a toll to cross any of its four East River bridges -- and, since 1986, has charged only a one-way toll (into Staten Island) on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which some critics consider one of the most pro congestion policies ever devised.

The city government provides free or subsidized parking to some employees. As a result, government workers in lower and midtown Manhattan are twice as likely as their private sector counterparts to drive to work , according to one study (in pdf format). "If government workers commuted by car at the same rate as other workers, there would be 14,000 fewer cars coming into the Manhattan Central Business District each day," the report concluded.

And some critics charge the city's view of its role adds to the problem. "We're still measuring success the old fashioned way," said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. He notes that, under transportation, the Mayor's Management Report does not explicitly mention reducing traffic, and instead cites such goals as "improving traffic flow" and repairing potholes.

CONGESTION PRICING

In 2000, central London faced many problems similar to those confronting New York today. Although only about 10 percent of people traveled into the area by private cars (by one estimate, less than 15 percent of New Yorkers use private cars to come into Manhattan), this greatly taxed streets that have changed little since medieval days. With London set to have an elected mayor for the first time, Ken Livingstone ran on a platform that included a charge on driving at peak hours in certain parts of the city, with the revenue slated for mass transit, particularly an increase in the number of buses.

Interestingly the idea for congestion pricing had its roots in New York -- in the work of William Vickery, a Columbia University professor and Nobel prize winner. In the 1950s, he proposed the subways charge riders more at peak travel times. He later extended the concept to traffic. The idea was adopted in Singapore and in three Norwegian cities. But in Vickery's hometown, congestion pricing has remained largely just an idea.

While the British may not be quite so enamored of their cars as Americans, it is a country whose onetime leader Margaret Thatcher said, "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." Livingstone's Conservative rival came out against congestion charges, and opponents set up a Web site to collect signatures and campaign against the proposal -- in sometimes virulent language.

But Livingstone won, and he and his traffic commissioner Robert Kiley, who once chaired New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, went ahead with the plan. Beginning in February 2003, the city charged cars entering an area of about eight square miles on weekdays 5 pounds, or about $8.75, with some exemptions. In July 2005 the fee increased to 8 pounds. People can pay at machines, stores and by Internet or cell phone. Video cameras photograph cars to insure compliance.

The city government considers the program a success. It lists (in pdf format) reductions in congestion of about 30 percent. Auto trips during peak hours declined by about 20 percent, as bus ridership increased by 29,000 in the first year. The city plans to extend the zone westward in February 2007.

There are dissenters. While the charges have eased inner city traffic, they have made things worse on approaches to the city and on outer roads, Johan Wennstrom wrote in Tech Central Station, an online technology publication.

Some say it has hurt business. "A five pound-a-day charge has already resulted in 70,000 fewer car journeys a day into central London -- and this diminution of paying customers has already had an extremely negative impact on retailers and restaurateurs in particular," the London Chamber of Commerce's chief executive, Colin Stanbridge, told the Guardian.

Other cities may follow London's lead however. Stockholm has been testing a plan and will decide whether to implement it permanently later this year.

A PLAN FOR NEW YORK

On this side of the Atlantic, the idea attracted a flurry of interest last November when the Partnership for New York City, a business group, began discussing how congestion pricing might work here.

Some of the impetus arose from concerns that congestion is bad for business. ''In the core of Times Square, there is no doubt about the need to create more space for pedestrians,'' Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance business district, told the New York Times. ''In one October afternoon a couple of years ago, between 3 and 7 p.m. we counted 4,000 people walking literally in the street, in traffic lanes, because the sidewalks were too crowded.''

But newly reelected Mayor Michael Bloomberg quickly cast doubt on any such proposal. "Although we're always open to ideas from the business community, this isn't on the mayor's second-term agenda," said Edward Skyler, then a Bloomberg spokesman (now a deputy mayor).

The partnership says it will issue a report later this year that will consider congestion pricing along with other measures to fight New York's traffic jams. But however the partnership comes down on the issue, other groups will push for it. The Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief has formed to advocate a number of measures to combat congestion, including congestion pricing. And in its editorial on Bloomberg's inauguration for a second term, the New York Times said, "We hope that the mayor uses his unusual position to go a few places where no normal politician dares, like imposing congestion pricing for cars coming into those areas of the city with the heaviest traffic."

"There is no other tool out there as effective for cutting traffic as congestion pricing," Andrew H.Darrell, New York regional director of the group Environmental Defense, has said.

A 2003 analysis by the Regional Plan Association says charging people to enter part of Manhattan at peak hours could reduce morning rush hour traffic by up to 17 percent, depending on the specifics of the pricing scheme. In its analysis, the group found that only one percent of the four million people who enter Manhattan on a weekday would not do so because of a congestion fee.

There is some small precedent for the idea here. The Port Authority charges customers using EZ pass at its bridges and tunnels in the city $1 more at peak times than at less traveled hours of the day.

Until recently, congestion fees would have been unworkable because tollbooths with attendants would have had to collect the charges. But experts say the technology now used in EZ passes allows motorists to be charged electronically without even stopping.

The charges appeal to environmentalists and advocates for mass transit, walking and cycling. They also have support from some free-market champions. "Roads are congested because they are free, and because no market mechanism exists to allocate scarce road capacity," wrote Jerry Taylor and Peter VanDoren of the Cato Institute, a think tank that supports limited government and free markets.

But not everyone agrees. Mitchell Moss, a professor at NYU's Wagner school and onetime adviser to Bloomberg, has called congestion pricing "a threat to the economic vitality of our city." Writing in the Daily News, he said, the fees would "increase the cost of getting to work for New Yorkers who live in communities not served by mass transit, hurt Manhattan hospitals that treat patients from all five boroughs and make our museums and cultural attractions less accessible to suburbanites."

Others raise the equity issue. Congestion pricing, wrote Kerry Dougherty in the Norfolk Virginia-Pilot, penalizes lower income workers and "rewards those with flexible hours and punishes those with inflexible schedules [who] tend to be concentrated toward the bottom of the wage scale."

This is less true in New York than in other places,since in New York poor people are unlikely to own cars, let along drive them into Manhattan in the middle of the workweek. But certainly any fee poses more of a burden on people with less money to pay it.

And even the plan's adherents concede it would face huge political obstacles (in pdf format), with many observers predicting that Bloomberg would not want to risk a bruising battle on this issue.

TOLLS FOR BRIDGES

Photos by Michael Hauer

The mayor has reason to be wary. Early in his first term, he considered placing tolls on the now free East River bridges to generate revenue. The idea had first surfaced in 1970, as part of a possible New York response to the requirements of the Clean Air Act. But it never went anywhere.

And it died again in 2002. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz reportedly called the tolls "a turkey," and his Queens counterpart, Helen Marshall, said commuters should not be "punished" for traveling from one borough to another. City Council members from Brooklyn and Queens protested too. Bloomberg backed down, saying, "Some of the effects of reducing traffic and that sort of thing would be ... a good idea, but I think, if you really look at it, it's not a short-term solution to our problems."

But advocates say it would solve problems. They note free bridges are not free, costing about $60 million a year to maintain and operate. According to a report (in pdf format) by transportation analyst (and Gotham Gazette columnist) Bruce Schaller, the tolls would reduce traffic congestion in downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City by up to 14 percent.

OTHER IDEAS TO FIGHT TRAFFIC

Turn-restricted Streets: Under Bloomberg, the city has designated nine cross-town Manhattan streets "Thru Streets," restricting turns from them during the business day. A report (in pdf format) by the Department of Transportation found that travel times on the street fell by 25 percent, while speeds increased by 33 percent.

Cleaner Fuel:Last summer, Bloomberg announced a $71 million program to improve traffic congestion in the city. In truth, much of the program would leave cars where they are but make them burn cleaner fuel.

Encouraging Alternative Transportation, etc.:The mayor's new program also called for spending $21 million on various efforts to encourage walking and bicycling and $14 million for improvements to the Traffic Management Center in Long Island City, which sends out electronic advisories of traffic tie-ups.

Traffic Calming: So called "traffic calming measures'' are not so much designed to reduce traffic as to make the cars less of a threat to pedestrians and cyclists. As part of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project, the city is changing the timing on traffic signals to give pedestrians a green light a few seconds before vehicles get the go-ahead. This, said Craig Hammerman, district manager of Community Board 6 in Brooklyn, "gives pedestrians the opportunity to take control of the crosswalk." While such measures do not explicitly aim to reduce congestion, Hammerman said, they can have that effect because they slow traffic down, making driving a less attractive option.

Parking policies: Drivers circling blocks looking for parking spaces create congestion. The solution according to some advocates: less parking, not more. A 2002 survey found that only 24 percent of the almost 30,000 curbside parking spaces in Manhattan south of 59th Street had meters. Donald Shoup, a professor at University of California Los Angeles and author of "The High Cost of Free Parking" argues that free parking adds to "extreme auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl and extravagant energy use." Shoup believes the city should set rates for on-street parking high enough so that about 15 percent of the spaces are usually unoccupied. London has already done this.

Removing Roads: For many years, people figured the solution to congestion was to build more roads. While such a solution is largely impractical in densely developed New York, many say it is not very effective anywhere. Building more roads, as the interstate system and Robert Moses' New York parkways have shown, makes driving more attractive, leading more people to do more of it.

Conversely, some experts believe, removing roads does not make congestion worse. In the late 1990s, Transport for London studied a number of major roads -- including the West Side Highway in the 1970s -- that were taken out of service. While traffic engineers predicted chaos, little resulted. Instead, some traffic disappeared, wrote Aaron Naparstek in the New York Press: "When it wasn't convenient to drive anymore, commuters took a different mode of transit, traveled at a different time of day, or made fewer, more efficient trips."

While few people call for destroying existing highways, advocates say that something must -- and can -- be done to ease traffic. "We got rid of graffiti, we have discounts on subways and buses, and we may even be on the verge of having clean public bathrooms," the Regional Plan Association wrote in 2003. "We have it in our grasp to do something about mind-numbing traffic congestion."

Related Article

New York Needs A London Plan, by Stephen Hammer.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Web Sites

- American Automobile Association: Provides information on traffic from a pro-driving perspective

- Bridge Tolls Advocacy Project: A Web site that seeks to promote placing tolls on the city's East River bridges

- City Streets: A pedestrian rights and advocacy group

- Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief: A coalition advocating congestion pricing, traffic calming and other measures to reduce city traffic by 15 percent by t 2009.

- New York City Department of Transportation

- Transportation Alternatives: A New York group whose mission is to work for better bicycling, walking and public transit, and fewer cars.

- Texas Transportation Institute: Conducts research on transportation and issues an annual Urban Mobility Study on traffic congestion in U.S. cities and its cost in time and resources.

- Transport for London: The London's government on-line source for information on on congestion pricing, including the rules, test of the law and reports on how it has worked.

Articles and Reports

- Auto Asphyxiation: Car is King at the DOT (NY Press) A critique of city traffic policies

- Can Anyone Solve the Problem of Traffic? (The New Yorker): The traffic problem through the eyes of a television traffic reporter.

- Congestion Pricing for NYC (Manhattan Institute): A speech on why the idea makes sense by former city traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz

- Congestion Pricing in New York?: Yes (Daily News): An op-ed by Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives

- Congestion Pricing in New York?: No (Daily News) An op-ed by NYU professor Mitchell Moss.

- Driving Around Manhattan, You Pay, Under One Traffic Idea (New York Times)

- East River Bridge Tolls Revenue: Traffic, Mobility and Equity Impacts: A report prepared for the Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives

- An Exploration of Motor Vehicle Congestion Pricing in New York (Regional Plan Association)

- Fighting Traffic Congestion with Information Technology (Issues in Science and Technology): We have the technical means to solve congestion, but what about the political will?

- Gridlock Sam's History of US Traffic: Former city traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz on the roots of the congestion mess

- London Congestion Pricing: Implications for Other Cities (Victoria Transport Policy Institute)

- Pricing the Fast Lane (Cato Institute): A free market argument for congestion pricing

- A Traffic Knot Pulling Tighter (New York Times): The existing congestion problem around the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards development

 

The typical endgame to a labor settlement is very straightforward. Management and the union declare that the contract is “fair” and “good for both sides” while acknowledging that neither side got everything they wanted. Both sides urge ratification by union members and the governing board. Although reporters may get some union members and outside observers to critique the terms of the contract, the main actors on both sides stand firmly behind ratification.

This has not been the case with the settlement between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, announced on December 27 and now going to union members for a ratification vote.

Dissent and Disagreement

The first break in the usual script came on December 30, when Sewell Chan of the New York Times reported that Governor George Pataki was inclined to veto a key provision of the contract. That provision would give 16,000 workers refunds of pension contributions they made in the late 1990s. The governor’s spokeswoman said that, “The union leadership broke the law, and we will not reward those who break the law … We will not allow the union leadership to benefit from their illegal acts.”

The next day, a Pataki spokesman added that no one in the governor’s office had been told of the refund provision before the settlement was announced.

Then in the New York Times of January 5th, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, while praising the agreement, also indicated that he was unsure whether he would advise the MTA Board to approve the agreement.

On the union side, TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint stood behind the contract and called for its ratification. Some union dissidents, however, urged members to vote it down, noting in particular that workers will have to pay 1.5 percent of their salary toward health coverage under the new contract.

Questions and Implications

Understanding the contract and post-settlement developments raises questions about the terms of the contract and its implications for transit employees, the MTA and subway and bus riders.

Did the union gain from striking?

The MTA’s final wage offer stood in the final deal: three percent in the first year, four percent in the second year and 3.5 percent in the third year. But the union got management to drop demands to merge job certain titles and add duties for some workers. The union also won improved health coverage for pre-Medicare retirees; Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday; assault pay for bus operators, train operators and conductors; improved disability insurance and a modest maternity benefit. And the union got the pension refund.

The union got management to drop its demands to require new workers to pay six percent of their wages into the pension system instead of the two percent that workers pay now. However, the union accepted the 1.5 percent health benefit payments for all workers, current and new. So the TWU upheld Toussaint’s stance that he would not “sell out our unborn,” but at a cost to today’s members.

So did the Metropolitan Transportation Authority yield as a result of the strike?

The MTA vehemently says no. It argues that its overall labor costs will rise by $400 million over the next three years as opposed to the $477 million cost of its final offer before the strike.

Much of this savings is from the switch from six percent pension contributions by new workers to 1.5 percent health contributions from all current workers. Over the next three years, the difference is about $82 more from the health contributions. In the long term, however, the higher pension contribution might have produced a higher return; one estimate quoted a figure of $70 million a year two decades from now. On the other hand, an escalator clause on health coverage may substantially boost its yield.

Of course, the authority's calculations do not include the $132 million cost of the pension refunds. When that amount is counted, the contract is more expensive than the authority's final pre-strike offer over the three-year contract term.

While the pension refund is a one-time payment, the health payments will presumably continue indefinitely. In that sense, the MTA agreed to a relatively large upfront expense in exchange for long-term savings. Of course, future labor negotiations could erase – or increase – those savings.

What are the pension refunds and what role do they have in the contract?

From 1994 to 2000, upwards of 20,000 of the 33,000 union members paid 5.3 percent of their salary into the pension system instead of the two percent that they paid prior to 1994. The higher payments were in exchange for joining an upgraded pension plan that allows workers with 25 years of service to retire at age 55. Employees could voluntarily elect this pension upgrade, or they could stick with the old system’s later retirement age and two percent pension contribution. Evidently, most chose the upgrade.

With the stock market swelling pension system assets, in 2000 the state legislature approved pension changes that included a cost of living adjustment and reduced pension contributions from the 5.3 percent back to two percent. The transit contract now calls for the legislature to approve refunds of the “excess” that workers paid into the system from 1994 to 2000. According to news reports, depending on employees’ salaries and overtime earnings, the refunds will range from $8,400 and be as high as $14,000 for some transit workers. (The pension terms are detailed in articles on the settlement and pension refund in the Chief-Leader, the civil service newspaper.)

The governor’s objection is that transit workers receiving $8,000 or more in refunds wouldn’t feel any pain from the roughly $1,000 per striker fines for the illegal strike. The refunds make it appear that the contract rewards workers for striking. This hardly burnishes Pataki’s conservative credentials as he contemplates a run for the presidency. It also might make another strike when the contract expires in three years more likely.

Pataki had twice vetoed bills that would have granted refunds, so on that score it seems that he is being consistent. But in vetoing those bills, the governor said they should be subject to collective bargaining – as they were after the strike.

How does this settlement affect the likelihood of a strike when the new contract expires?

There is one clear bit of good news for transit riders in the new contract: it lasts for 37 months. That means that the new contract expires in January 2009 rather than December 2008. January is still a cold month to walk, bike or car pool to work, but at least it’s past the holiday rush.

Beyond that, it is difficult to be optimistic that this experience reduces the chance of a future strike. The Taylor Law penalizes transit strikers two days pay for every day they are on strike. But the law discourages striking only if workers feel the pain in their pocketbook. The governor and other critics are correct that many union members are coming away better off, both short-term and long-term, after the strike.

But that is only part of the picture. Also critical to the prospects for a future strike are non-economic aspects of the contract. As I discussed previously, transit employees were negotiating for respect -– meaning improvements in their daily experience of the workplace -– as well as higher wages, better pensions and other economic gains.

This contract addresses the workplace issues by promising an independent study of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's disciplinary system. Before the strike, much was made of the fact that there are about 15,000 disciplinary actions a year, or about one for every two workers. A close look at the disciplinary system is thus an important part of the contract.

It is doubtful, however, that a study focused on the disciplinary system will take the edge off the deep feelings of transit employees that caused many of them to be predisposed to walking out. Disciplinary actions are the tip of an iceberg that involves work rules, supervision and employees’ ability to be effective on the job and be treated as valued members of a team. The contract does not address those larger issues.

Does the contract address the MTA’s non-economic needs?

Here too, the contract seems to come up short. The needs of the transit system are slowly but surely changing. The tremendous improvements to the subway system over the last two decades, plummeting crime rates and introduction of the Metrocard fundamentally change what employees need to be doing. “Token clerks” were once sealed inside their booths for their own protection and to allow them to concentrate on selling tokens. Most subway stations are now safer than the street corners under which they sit, and tokens are no longer sold anywhere in New York. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has talked about making token clerks into customer service agents who roam the station helping riders and keeping the station tidy. But the agency dropped demands for station attendants to do station cleaning.

Technological changes also make it possible for trains to be operated by one person instead of two, as currently. The MTA proposed to merge train operator and conductor titles and allow additional one-person train operations, thus negating an arbitrator’s decision that prohibited one-person train operation on the “L” line.

The potential labor cost savings are quite important in a context in which the authority's debt service payments are slated to rise rapidly in coming years. The idea of one-person train operation is hardly new; it’s used on some shuttle trains in New York already. There are in fact some train operations that are completely automated: the monorails at JFK and Newark airports are a local example. A newly built subway line that runs through the heart of Paris is another example. Yet the MTA dropped its demands to implement more one-person train operations.

What is the bottom line about the transit contract?

Calculating the bottom line is difficult because the contract involves short-term and long-term as well as economic and non-economic considerations and is somewhat contingent on future events. However, several things are evident.

First, transit employees who get pension refunds are substantially better off with the contract than they would have been with the MTA’s final pre-strike offer. An immediate payment averaging $8,400 trumps both the fines they will pay and the annual wage increases – even if it is taxable, as union members are beginning to realize.

Transit employees hired since 2000 are somewhat worse off, having to pay 1.5 percent of wages for health coverage starting with the contract, and probably a higher rate as health costs rise.

Future hires are better off, since they will not have to pay six percent toward their pensions.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority got long-term health cost savings that in the short term surpass, and in the long term may rival, the savings from the six percent pension contributions that were dropped. But the $132 million pension refunds is a sizable upfront expense.

Subway and bus riders are better off than if the strike continued past three days, but worse off because there is little in the contract that will relieve pressures for biannual fare increases that are currently planned.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. 

The East Side of Manhattan is at a critical juncture. The land use and infrastructure decisions we make today will affect the city for generations to come.

CON EDISON WATERSIDE PLANT
One of the biggest challenges facing the area is the future of a plot of land where the Con Edison Waterside Plant currently sits, between 38th and 40th Streets on First Avenue.

This parcel of land - approximately nine acres in total - represents the only existing developable space on the Manhattan side of the East River. It also presents an opportunity to act boldly in defense of open public space and for the creation of affordable housing.

Developer Sheldon Solow, who wants to create a series of buildings similar in size to the Chrysler Building and the Trump World Tower, recently purchased the land. As proposed, these buildings would include four million square feet of residential space and one million square feet of commercial space, with a plaza and ice skating rink in the center.

In order to accomplish this, the developers will need to ask the city to change the zoning regulation for this area. During this process, it will be the responsibility of local government to make sure that this development maximizes open public space, allows unencumbered access to the waterfront, and creates the affordable housing units that the city desperately needs.

We also need to think creatively about finding new areas for open space.

One proposal involves creating a deck over the FDR Drive that would connect 39th and 40th Streets to an esplanade along the East River. The Economic Development Corporation is studying the feasibility of such a deck. I, along with other local elected officials, have asked them to move expeditiously on the completion of this study.

BUILDING NEW TRANSPORTATION
The East Side also faces special infrastructure challenges - particularly in the area of transportation.

The Lexington Avenue subway line bears 40 percent of all subway riders in New York City, and is the busiest subway line in the nation. It is already taxed beyond its capacity. The infusion of tens of thousands of new residents in the proposed Con Ed redevelopment would push it well beyond its limitations.

Another plan for the future, known as East Side Access, will connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Station will also bring in approximately 28,000 people to the East Side every hour during rush hour. Half of those commuters will likely travel to other destinations in Manhattan, mostly using the already congested Lexington line.

In light of the development at the Con Edison site and the East Side Access proposal, construction of the long-awaited Second Avenue Subway line needs to be at the top of any transportation priority list.

Efforts to construct a new line on Second Avenue stalled during the city's fiscal crisis in the 1970s. But with the passage of the Transportation Bond Act in November, these efforts can finally start again. The time is right; we simply cannot delay any longer.

In the interim, I support creating dedicated bus lanes on First and Second Avenues as part of a "Bus Rapid Transit" system.

In such a system, each bus could be equipped with global positioning technology so that a dispatcher can monitor its distance from other buses, and instruct the driver to move faster or slower in accordance with their schedules. The same technology can be used to advise riders the amount of time they will need to wait before the next bus or subway arrives.

While not a complete solution, Bus Rapid Transit will help to alleviate the growing strain on East Side straphangers.

Thinking strategically about land use and transportation on the East Side also presents an opportunity for us to re-invigorate efforts to make better use of our waterfronts to move residents around - such as by expanding ferry service to lesser-served communities around the city.

Daniel Garodnick represents City Council district 4, which includes the neighborhoods of Midtown East, Murray Hill, Stuyvesant Town and the Upper East Side.

 

You can negotiate for higher wages and to preserve your health benefits and your pension. But how do you negotiate for respect?

Although there were clear dollars-and-cents issues that drove the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 to call a strike against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) early in the morning of December 20, respect seemed to be the driving motivating factor.

This became clearer as the strike got underway and the voices of the rank-and-file were heard more prominently in the press. The Daily News, for example, reported the story of Willie Casiano, a mechanic, who said that his supervisor has “been accusing me of chronic sick-leave abuse" during chemotherapy treatment. An Associated Press article quoted Angel Ortiz, another transit worker, saying, "Everybody treats us like crap all the time. We're tired of being treated like we're the garbage of the city." Charles Craft, a track worker, said that some bosses treat his colleagues "like animals.”

It’s hard to understand the transit strike without thinking about these comments. How else can one explain why TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint seemed undaunted on the first day of the strike. Undaunted -- despite a court imposing $1 million a day fines on the union; the president of the international union, Michael T. O’Brien, urging workers to abandon the strike and return to work immediately; and the state Public Employment Relations Board dismissing the union's complaint that the transit authority violated state law by negotiating pensions.

Without considering the issue of respect, it is difficult to understand why talks came to a standstill the night before the strike, despite the MTA’s making a significant change in its pension proposals. Up until then, the MTA had wanted to increase the age for full retirement from age 55 to age 62 for new employees. Before the midnight strike deadline, the MTA put on the table a proposal to retain 55 as the retirement age for new employees but deduct six percent instead of the current two percent from their paychecks. The union objected to this as a four percent wage cut. But what could be more negotiable than the difference between six percent and two percent?

Only the issue of respect can explain why the union has steadfastly refused to consider mandatory arbitration, a route they embraced in the early 1980s. As Toussaint has said repeatedly, the union wants its members to make their own decision on what contract terms to accept. Making decisions for yourself is a matter of self-respect.

Nelson Rivera, a shop chairman for mechanics and car cleaners at a Manhattan depot, seemed to articulate to the Daily News how workers’ deep desire for respect and Toussaint as the local president have come together to produce a strike. "’We've been fed up with the MTA and wanted a strike for years,’ Rivera said. ‘But until Roger got elected, no union leader dared to stand up to management.’"

How this volatile situation will play out is impossible to predict. All the forces against the union are applying maximum pressure for a settlement: the $1 million a day fines; Taylor Law provisions that fine workers two days pay for every day they walk out; the international union’s lack of support; and harsh rhetoric from the mayor and governor. With the strike costing the union millions a day and the city tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in police overtime, lost retail sales and a myriad of other costs, it’s hard to believe that the strike can last an extended period of time. The MTA and TWU need to find some way to bridge the gap.

Whether they have truly done so, however, will become evident only when the time comes – two or three years from now – to negotiate the next contract. Will that next contract also be about respect?

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

The Transport Workers Union early Tuesday morning, December 20th, announced a transit strike.

TRANSIT STRIKE INFORMATION AND REGULATIONS -- THE DETAILS

FOLLOW THE LATEST ON TRANSIT NEGOTIATIONS

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
The transit system's official Web site has official information on contingency plans and how other unrelated trains, bus, and ferries will be affected.

Transport Workers Union, Local 100
The Web site of the transit workers' union has official notices, news updates, and a calendar of events.

Gotham Gazette's Wonkster
A blog of news and opinion.

NYCtransitstrike.com
This Web site is published by Sam Schwartz, "Gridlock Sam," an expert on infrastructure, traffic safety and transportation systems.

ALTERNATE WAYS TO GET AROUND

NYC.gov Strike Contingency Plan Information
Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined the city's official plans in case of a transit strike. This Web site offers basic information and links to other official Web pages.

Craig's List Ride Shares
A bulletin board for New Yorkers looking for rides, or riders (to have the four necessary to be allowed into Manhattan during rush hour.)

New York Times Guide to Commuting Map (in pdf format)
This map of the five boroughs shows pedestrian crossings into Manhattan, park-and-ride stations, car pool staging areas, taxi fare zones, and roadways reserved for emergency vehicles.

Unaffected Transportation Services (Trains, Buses, Ferries)
See the Web site of each of the following trains, bus, and ferry service for changes meant to ease congestion on these systems, which are not affected by the strike:
- Long Island Railroad
-Metro-North Railroad
-Staten Island Railway
- PATH
- Amtrak
- AirTrain
- NJ Transit (commuter rail and bus)
-Long Island Bus
-Westchester County Bee-Line
-Staten Island Ferry
-Private Ferries

Map of Taxi and Car Hiring Zones (in pdf format)
A map of areas in each of the five boroughs where passengers can hire cars and taxis.

Map of Parking and Car Pool Locations (in pdf format)
This map shows designated carpool areas so drivers and riders can share rides to meet the four person per car requirement.

Map of Pedestrian and Bicycle Access to Manhattan (in pdf format)
A map of the five boroughs showing where pedestrians and bicyclists can cross into Manhattan.

Transportation Alternative's Tips on Biking to Work
Transportation Alternatives, a pedestrian advocacy group, offers tips for new cyclists, suggestions for where to buy a bike, and an outline of "the rules of the road" (like how to avoid car doors).

TRANSIT STRIKE INFORMATION AND REGULATIONS -- Selective Links

Public School Information for Strike
All regular school start times will be delayed for two hours. The end of the school day will not be changed. Teachers are supposed to arrive no later than one hour after their regular scheduled start time.

Police Department Driving Restrictions
The city will require four or more passengers in each car entering Manhattan south of 96th Street from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m., Monday-Friday. Also certain streets in Manhattan will be reserved for emergency vehicles, buses, and commuter vans only. This link provides a map of all roadways, bridges, and tunnels affected.

Special Taxi Regulations for Strike
Taxi and Limousine Commission-licensed taxis and livery cabs will be allowed to pick up multiple passengers in a single trip. They will also use a different fare schedule. Fares will be up to $10 per person for entering a cab and $5 for traveling to an additional zone.

Strike Parking Regulations
Alternate side of the street parking rules will be suspended. And to improve traffic flow, weekday "No Standing" and "No Parking" rules will be extended.

Suggestions for Employers
The city offers six simple options for employers like "allow workers to telecommute" and "stagger shift schedules to avoid rush hour."

TRANSIT STRIKE INFORMATION AND REGULATIONS -- THE DETAILS

DRIVING

PARKING

TAXIS & CAR AND VAN SERVICES (rules only in effect Mon - Fri during strike.)

BICYCLING

CARPOOLING

FERRY SERVICE

COMMUTER RAIL SERVICE

Long Island Railroad(NOTE: modified service does not begin until WED around 4am)

Metro-North Railroad(NOTE: modified service does not begin until WED around 4am)

UNAFFECTED SERVICE

Staten Island Railway PATH Amtrak AirTrain NJ Transit (commuter rail and bus) Long Island Bus Westchester County Bee-Line

PUBLIC SCHOOL INFO

 

Brinksmanship in contract negotiations between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and its largest union, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, left New Yorkers feeling that “no news is good news” as they dressed for work on a rainy Friday morning, hours after the union’s contract with the MTA expired. Subways and buses kept rolling as contract negotiations broke up at 4:30 a.m. with no word from either side.

Three hours later, Transport Workers Union President Roger Toussaint announced that the union board had authorized a “series of strikes,” starting with two private bus lines in Queens recently absorbed into the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. These workers have been without a contract for three years. Toussaint said the union was prepared to continue to bargain, but he also denounced the MTA for bad-faith bargaining. He indicated that the union would broaden the strike to “MTA properties” if no settlement was reached, but did not specify a deadline. "We have been left with no choice," he said at around 7:15 Friday morning, after the morning rush hour had already begun.

Dim Prospects For A Settlement

In the days and then hours leading up to the December 15 midnight deadline, events seemed to be building inevitably towards a strike:

The city filed suit seeking fines of $25,000 a day for every worker, doubling for every day of the strike, and additional millions from the union.

MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow suggested at a news conference that arbitration –- a course favored by the union after the 1980 strike -– could break the impasse. TWU President Roger Toussaint denounced Kalikow’s remarks and insisted that union members wanted to settle their own fate.

Transit workers rallied with the cry, “Shut it down!”

Dissident union members tried to disrupt a Toussaint news conference, highlighting internal pressures that were not favorable to a settlement. The union distributed instructions to members on how to shut down subways and buses.

The city readied an emergency plan to set up carpool staging areas and park-and-ride lots, limit traffic into Manhattan, and open schools two hours later throughout the city. Private employers followed suit with plans for buses and van shuttle services and even day care for workers whose nannies might not be able to show up for work.

Public comments on progress in the talks on Thursday were also not optimistic. Toussaint said chances of a strike were “50-50.” The head MTA negotiator, Gary Dellaverson, said there had simply not been enough negotiations to bridge the gap. MTA Board Member Barry Feinstein, a former Teamsters local president, noted that smaller issues which should have been resolved by the last day of negotiations had not been.

Kalikow joined negotiations himself shortly before the midnight deadline, but no settlement could be reached. In announcing the strike, Toussaint said that Kalikow's attempt to solve major differences between the union and the authority in so short a time was insulting.

Points Of Contention

The main issues continued to be wages, pension benefits, health coverage and work rules:

Wage increases: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority offered two wage increases of three percent each over 27 months. The union sought eight percent annual wage increases.

Pension benefits: The MTA wants to move the retirement age from 55 to 62 for newly hired employees and is asking for higher employee contributions from new workers. The TWU countered with a proposal to reduce the age for full retirement benefits to 50.

Health coverage: The MTA is asking for higher co-payments for prescription drugs and office visits. The MTA also wants new employees to contribute two percent toward health care premiums. The union opposes these changes.

Job responsibilities: Another controversial area is the MTA’s desire to broaden job responsibilities for certain titles. The MTA originally asked to eliminate conductors from some trains so that train operators (“motormen” in the old parlance) would open doors and make announcements as well as operate the train. The TWU has been fiercely opposed to this proposal and won an arbitration ruling on the issue. The MTA more recently proposed to convert conductors to customer service agents who would roam the train rather than stay in the conductors' booth. Similarly, the MTA wants the former token clerks to move around subway stations and help riders. The union has expressed reservations about employees’ safety in stations, and passenger safety if conductors’ duties are changed.

Differences From 2002

The task of reaching a settlement has been complicated by differences this year compared to three years ago, when negotiators stopped the clock to reach a settlement the day after the contract expired. Unlike three years ago, the MTA is running a $1 billion surplus, so the union feels there is less of an argument that the MTA cannot afford more generous wages and benefits. The MTA replies that the surplus is generated by a blip in tax revenues that will not last. The MTA expects to confront deep deficits in coming years and plans fare increases in 2007 and 2009.

Paths To Settlement

Several paths to a settlement still remain. While the TWU has opposed binding arbitration, according to the TWU Web site, the union championed the current law that provides for arbitration and won a 21.5 percent wage increase, over three years, in 1982 through arbitration.

The contract issues also lend themselves to compromise. The MTA undoubtedly could increase the wage hike from the three precent it has offered. It would appear that changes to the retirement age are unlikely given the cost of the TWU proposal on the one hand and the need for state legislation to implement the MTA’s proposal. A middle ground for payments for health benefits and changes in work rules could be found by modifying or phasing in any changes.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers continue to wait for word on whether the two sides will find common ground, or whether the cold and wet holiday season will turn increasingly ugly.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

For the second time in three years, New Yorkers are bracing for a transit strike during the busy and cold December holiday season.

To prevent a showdown, a myriad of issues need to be resolved between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and its largest union, the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100. Central issues to the contract dispute are:

Wage increases: The MTA on December 7 offered wage increases of three percent next year and two percent the following year. Union officials criticized this offer but did not formally reject it.

Pension benefits: The MTA wants to move the retirement age from 55 to 62 for newly hired employees and is asking for those new workers to contribute more towards their pensions. Union president Roger Toussaint has voiced opposition to “selling out our unborn” in reference to new workers and said that the current “25/55” (25 years of service, retire at 55) must be maintained.

Health coverage: The MTA is asking for higher co-payments for prescription drugs and office visits. The MTA also wants new employees to contribute two percent toward health care premiums. The union opposes these changes.

Job responsibilities: Another controversial area is the agency's desire to broaden job responsibilities for certain titles. It originally asked to eliminate conductors from some trains so that train operators (“motormen” in the old parlance) would open doors and make announcements as well as operate the train. The union has been fiercely opposed to this proposal and won an arbitration ruling on the issue. The agency more recently proposed to convert conductors to customer service agents who would roam the train rather than stay in the conductors booth. Similarly, the MTA wants the former token clerks to move around subway stations and help riders. The union has expressed reservations about employees’ safety in stations, and passenger safety if conductors’ duties are changed.

Unlike three years ago, the MTA is running a $1 billion surplus, so the union feels there is less of an argument that the MTA cannot afford more generous wages and benefits. The MTA replies that the surplus is generated by a blip in tax revenues that will not last. The MTA expects to confront deep deficits in coming years and plans fare increases in 2007 and 2009.

That may be part of the reason that in its latest proposal, the MTA put forward a two-year contract offer rather than a three-year contract, the recent practice. Two years from now, MTA deficits will set a different tone for contract negotiations.

First Strike Since 1980?

Will there be a strike? The possibility seems very real. There is also strong pressure on Roger Toussaint, the union president, who needs a favorable contract to head off the disaffection among union members that followed the 2002 contract settlement.

On the other hand, TWU members also authorized a strike in December 2002, yet the contract was settled after negotiations that went a day past the deadline. The vote to authorize a strike has value as a way to apply pressure on the MTA, whether or not the authorization is exercised. The union and its members face severe sanctions if they do strike, which is illegal under the state’s Taylor Law. In 1980 the TWU paid a $1.5 million fine and workers were penalized two days pay for each day on strike, a total of $18 million.

Another possible option is binding arbitration. The MTA has called for arbitration if no settlement is reached before the contract deadline. The TWU has opposed arbitration; Toussaint has said that it “removes union members from having a say on their contract.” Yet according to the union Web site, the union championed the current law that provides for arbitration and won a 21.5 percent wage increase, over three years, in 1982 through arbitration.

The 1980 strike is widely seen to have been won by the MTA after the city, led by Mayor Edward I. Koch, continued to function. The 11-day strike had lasting impact on the city in a variety of ways, large and small. Women continued to wear sneakers to walk to work (with heels in handbags.) Jitney vans in Brooklyn and Queens, many of which made their debut in 1980, have become a part of many people’s commute.

Still In The Dark Ages

Since the 1980 transit strike, new subway cars and buses, renovated stations and more-frequent service has modernized the city’s vast public transportation system. Unfortunately, one thing that has not changed is MTA-TWU labor relations, which remain in the dark ages. While some transit agencies in other cities have made great strides in focusing labor management efforts on replacing confrontation with problem-solving that benefits both sides (see the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Transit Labor Relations Guide in pdf format), today’s relationship between the sides is far from ideal.

Real progress would be not only settling the contract before December 15, but also tackling the much harder task of preventing a recurrence two or three years from now.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

The election results contained much good news for transportation in New York City. Voters statewide approved the $2.9 billion transportation bond act by a surprisingly large margin -- 55 percent to 45 percent -- five years after narrowly rejecting a $3.9 billion measure. The bond act provides $1.45 billion to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) five-year capital construction program.

Voter approval came after elected officials and civic and advocacy organizations came together to support the ballot proposition. Supporters raised $1.8 million for advertisements, flyers and an election-day operation to remind people to find the proposition on the ballot.

What Passage Will Mean

The bond act allocates $450 million for the first phase of the Second Avenue subway, and $450 million for bringing Long Island Rail Road trains to Grand Central Terminal. Passage of the bond act makes it almost certain that the federal government will contribute $4 billion for these projects between now and 2012 to round out their financing. MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow expressed confidence that his agency will reach agreement with the Federal Transit Administration on long-term federal funding agreements.

The bond act also commits $100 million for a rail link between lower Manhattan and Kennedy airport, $115 million for purchase of new subway and commuter railroad cars, $90 million for new buses; and $161 million for track replacement and tunnel lighting. In addition to transit projects, the bond act will fund tens of millions of dollars in highway improvement projects in New York City.

What Bloomberg's Victory Might Mean (i.e. Congestion Pricing?)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s victory was also viewed as a potentially promising development by transportation analysts who are hoping that the mayor will give more focus to transportation needs in his second term than he did in his first term. They hope that he will tackle the politically controversial idea of congestion pricing in Manhattan, which could reduce congestion and provide funds for better bus and subway service. The New York Times quoted Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group, saying that, “We have every indication that the city is prepared to look closely at that.” Bloomberg officials warned, however, that the mayor has been focusing on winning re-election and has not yet decided what initiatives to pursue.

Transit Security,

Voter approval of the bond may mean a broadening from the almost singular focus on financing needs to a range of other issues. This year has seen the adoption the bond act, a new five-year capital plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a six-year federal transportation bill that will provide increased funding to the transportation authority. With tax revenues exceeding expectations, the MTA is experiencing a surprising budget surplus. The surplus is unlikely to last very long and the MTA continues to forecast a fare increase in 2007. Nevertheless, financing of transit will compete for attention with several other issues.

One such issue is transit security. The MTA is seeking to use high-tech means to monitor activity in subway stations and catch possible terrorists. Whether this technology will actually work and whether the MTA can successfully install and operate it remains to be seen.

The MTA's Credibility

Another issue confronting the MTA is its own credibility. Kalikow is the first MTA chairman appointed by Governor George Pataki to take independent stands in favor of transit needs and breathe a greater openness into the MTA. But the effects of the fiasco that accompanied the MTA’s 2003 fare increase, in which the agency was accused by lying about its finances, continue to linger. This was seen most poignantly in the public’s reaction to the MTA’s plan to use part of its surplus to discount fares over the year-end holidays. Man-on-the-street interviews by reporters revealed a deep-seated skepticism about why the MTA would want to say “thank you” to riders with this small holiday gift. Some saw the discounts as an attempt to manipulate the public into voting for the bond act.

Overcrowding

The fact is that although the transit system is vastly improved from 25 years ago, riders’ expectations are also much higher. Revamped stations, new subway cars, fare discounts and a host of other improvements have drawn huge crowds into the subway. Overcrowding is now the system’s biggest problem, inevitably exacerbated whenever there is a service delay. A major challenge for the MTA is to reduce overcrowding in the short term, through signal and communications improvements and management of trains in the tunnels. Riders won’t tolerate waiting until the Second Avenue subway is built.

Better Relations With The Public?

While Kalikow stresses the MTA’s “transparency,” his philosophy is not always evidenced in the workings of the agency. Ask a token booth clerk whether trains are currently diverted for announced construction and you are likely to get a puzzled shrug – why would a token clerk know about such things as what trains are stopping at the station? Ask MTA staff for a report that was completed months ago, and one is likely to be told it is still a “draft,” or that staff are too busy to fulfill formal freedom of information requests for four to six months. Look on the MTA’s website for board minutes or detailed budget information – similar to what one finds for the Los Angeles MTA or other major transit agencies – and the effort will be in vain.

The election brought good news about how the MTA will pay for needed subway and bus improvements. But the task of improving the daily commute remains a daunting challenge.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting, which provides research and analysis about transportation. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. 

Unless you are a real policy wonk, you probably are not aware of the most important transportation issue in New York City this election season. No, it is not the well-publicized debate over metered parking on Sunday, an issue that has a relatively tiny impact on the daily lives of New Yorkers and even less on the growth of our economy. The far more pressing issue is a transportation bond act that is vitally needed to restore, maintain and expand the transit system. But, unlike Sunday parking, it has garnered almost no attention just weeks before the election. On behalf of the large and diverse Vote Yes for Transportation Campaign, I urge you to do just that on Proposal 2 this Election Day.

The Rebuild and Renew New York Transportation Bond Act of 2005 is critical to funding the state’s five-year transportation needs, helping to provide congestion relief, safe roads and expanded public transportation service for all New Yorkers. The $2.9 billion act is split evenly between Metropolitan Transportation Authority transit improvement and highway projects that touch every corner of the state, improving mobility while fueling economic growth, creating jobs and protecting the environment. The state’s 2025 Transportation Blue Ribbon Panel warned last year that the entire transportation network is in danger of deteriorating without significant funding, and the bond act is a key part of that funding package.

That is why nearly every elected official in the state -- including Governor George Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and challenger Fernando Ferrer, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and City Comptroller William Thompson – supports the bond act. Other backers include labor, business, civic and environmental organizations, from the state AFL-CIO to the Partnership for New York City, from the New York Building Congress to the Regional Plan Association and the League of Conservation Voters.

HELP FOR MASS TRANSIT

There are plenty of reasons why New York City residents should support the $2.9 billion act. First on the list is $450 million to restore and maintain the aging transit system that makes the city possible. This money will pay for new subway cars and buses, track repairs, tunnel lighting, a bus locator system, and Staten Island Railway bridges. The past year has brought numerous examples of the system’s fragility, from track fires to derailments, and the safety of all straphangers is at stake.

The second reason to support the bond act is the $900 million it will provide toward the first significant expansion of the subway system in more than 60 years. These funds will be split between East Side Access (which brings Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central) and the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, two projects that will greatly expand the capacity of the transit system and provide critical redundancy in case of natural or manmade disaster. For example, if there were an incident on the East Side today, the entire Lexington Avenue line would be shut down, crippling movement and the economy. But in the event of such a problem, the 2nd Avenue Subway could continue to carry passengers along the East Side. Similarly, the Long Island Rail Road extension would provide back-up commuter rail service during a major disruption at Penn Station. Both of these projects have languished for decades, but that should not be an excuse to reject them. They are critical to the growth of the region’s economy and our safety, and their completion will be nearly guaranteed if the bond act passes.

THE DANGERS OF DEFEAT

Finally, we must consider what would happen if the bond act does not pass. The $450 million for maintenance of the subway system would have to be found elsewhere. That would likely set up a choice between two unpleasant options. On the one hand, the MTA could fill the gap by issuing more of its own debt, putting further pressure on its operating budget and leading to even more fare hikes. On the other hand, the MTA could fill some of the gap by choosing not to fund other items already in its capital plan, such as the station rehabilitations that are so important to many city neighborhoods. In either case, an already decaying system will become more vulnerable and slide further toward the disrepair that plagued it in the 1970s. No one wants to go back there.

The $900 million that the bond act sets aside for expansion is unlikely to be replaced if it fails, causing the state to lose $4 billion in federal funds that were headed our way. Washington is waiting for the state to match some of that money, and, if we don’t, the federal funds will then go elsewhere. More importantly, if voters reject the bond act, we would lose the opportunity to expand a transit system that is no longer able to accommodate its current ridership and is certainly not prepared for the economic and population growth that the city envisions -- on the Far West Side, in Lower Manhattan, East Harlem, 125th Street, Downtown Brooklyn, Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Flushing and in so many other places.

A REASON TO BORROW

Some people will undoubtedly argue that the state’s system of borrowing money is in need of reform. They are absolutely correct. New York must address “back-door” borrowing, where the state’s public authorities pile up debt with no voter approval and little involvement from elected officials. But this bond act is different. Long-term borrowing for transportation infrastructure will always be appropriate, and the needs of our transportation system are too urgent and important to hold hostage to a reform effort that will be not be completed this season.

We have much to gain from a healthy and growing transportation system and too much to lose if we fail to keep that system running at a world-class level. On November 8, New Yorkers have a chance to show how important transportation is in our daily lives. Vote yes for transportation. Vote yes on Prop 2.

Jeremy Soffin is director of public affairs for the Regional Plan Association

• • • • • • •

• The Transportation Bond Act: Vote No by Nicole Gelinas

• • • • • • •

For more information in favor of the Transportation Bond Act:

• Vote yes for Transportation
The coalition supporting the act

• Transportation Bond Act
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority information page on the act

• Vote Yes on Ballot Proposal Two: Transportation Bond Act (in .PDF format)
Information from the Straphangers Campaign, the advocacy group for subway riders

• Governor Pataki Announces Support For $2.9 Billion Transportation Bond Act

• Debt We Can Live With: Front-door Borrowing for Transportation
A Newsday editorial

• Transportation Bond Act is Good Move
By Newsday columnist Joseph Dolman

• New York Voters Back Transportation Act: poll