Reopening the Gimbels passageway connecting the 7th Avenue line to the Herald Square complex should be a top priority. The streets connecting Penn Station to Herald Square are all choked with pedestrian traffic. Even if the passageway is outside fare control, it will still eliminate the climb from the Herald Square complex to street level and the descent back underground at Penn Station. That will cut congestion and provide a pathway that is protected from the weather to get all the way from 6th to 8th Avenue. Vornado was going to finance the passageway's rehabilitation as part of its plan to replace the Hotel Pennsylvania, which has never moved forward. I hope that whatever form the redevelopment of the hotel lot takes, that it still includes the passageway. With the number of people constantly coming through the area, there is no excuse for not getting this done.
Extending the $0.34/$100 payroll tax and the other taxes charged in MTA counties to the counties served by NJ Transit and merging NJT into the MTA would eliminate a hulk of bureaucratic duplication and provide NJT-served counties with a more predictable program of service and capital improvements. Today, all its funding has to go through the legislative process every year, quite unlike the MTA. The result is that NJT is even more underfunded than the MTA. For our family, which makes about $160,000/year, that is something like $500/year. The value of the lost time that my father could gain back each year with four tracks under the Hudson River dwarfs that.
The problem is, as usual, a few loud, well-heeled individuals who want all of the benefits and none of the costs. It is unfortunately these few to whom the legislators respond the most readily. We need a politics that caters to more than the lowest common denominator, and I hope that this forum is part of the solution.
Much of the cost problem is due to factors that the MTA cannot control. The governor sets the tone for work rules, including those that assigned 25 workers to the Second Avenue Subway tunnel boring machine that really needed only 9. Moreover, the governor just last year muscled through a contract for the LIRR that mandated staffing levels that few foreign rail systems need anymore. While the Democratic party can be faulted for kowtowing to organized labor, the right's alternative has been to pretend that defunding rail almost totally will solve the problem. As a voter and a frequent user of the rail system, it's not hard to imagine which one I and other voters would perceive as the lesser evil.
Until we have leaders undertaking a more sophisticated discussion of work rules, not much will change. The MTA has to either take the work rules or not build or run anything. For its part, it has actually cut a lot of administrative overhead in the past half-decade and continues to do so. I hope that the continued streamlining in the white-collar portions of the company will provoke some changes to the blue-collar rules, but again, that will take state-level leadership.
I think a great way to spend some of the Move NY proceeds on the road network would be to retrofit the parkways to accommodate bus and truck traffic. The first priority should be the Belt Parkway which links Staten Island and JFK airport. It is not right that trucks be forced to use neighborhood streets based on a notion that limited-access highways be reserved for the aesthetic enjoyment of car drivers. Foremost, the limited-access road corridors need to be used to move regional traffic of all types in the most efficient manner possible. Once that is taken care of, then we can focus on the aesthetics.
Reopening the Gimbels passageway connecting the 7th Avenue line to the Herald Square complex should be a top priority. The streets connecting Penn Station to Herald Square are all choked with pedestrian traffic. Even if the passageway is outside fare control, it will still eliminate the climb from the Herald Square complex to street level and the descent back underground at Penn Station. That will cut congestion and provide a pathway that is protected from the weather to get all the way from 6th to 8th Avenue. Vornado was going to finance the passageway's rehabilitation as part of its plan to replace the Hotel Pennsylvania, which has never moved forward. I hope that whatever form the redevelopment of the hotel lot takes, that it still includes the passageway. With the number of people constantly coming through the area, there is no excuse for not getting this done.
View this comment in the discussion thread
Extending the $0.34/$100 payroll tax and the other taxes charged in MTA counties to the counties served by NJ Transit and merging NJT into the MTA would eliminate a hulk of bureaucratic duplication and provide NJT-served counties with a more predictable program of service and capital improvements. Today, all its funding has to go through the legislative process every year, quite unlike the MTA. The result is that NJT is even more underfunded than the MTA. For our family, which makes about $160,000/year, that is something like $500/year. The value of the lost time that my father could gain back each year with four tracks under the Hudson River dwarfs that.
The problem is, as usual, a few loud, well-heeled individuals who want all of the benefits and none of the costs. It is unfortunately these few to whom the legislators respond the most readily. We need a politics that caters to more than the lowest common denominator, and I hope that this forum is part of the solution.
View this comment in the discussion thread
Much of the cost problem is due to factors that the MTA cannot control. The governor sets the tone for work rules, including those that assigned 25 workers to the Second Avenue Subway tunnel boring machine that really needed only 9. Moreover, the governor just last year muscled through a contract for the LIRR that mandated staffing levels that few foreign rail systems need anymore. While the Democratic party can be faulted for kowtowing to organized labor, the right's alternative has been to pretend that defunding rail almost totally will solve the problem. As a voter and a frequent user of the rail system, it's not hard to imagine which one I and other voters would perceive as the lesser evil.
Until we have leaders undertaking a more sophisticated discussion of work rules, not much will change. The MTA has to either take the work rules or not build or run anything. For its part, it has actually cut a lot of administrative overhead in the past half-decade and continues to do so. I hope that the continued streamlining in the white-collar portions of the company will provoke some changes to the blue-collar rules, but again, that will take state-level leadership.
View this comment in the discussion thread
I think a great way to spend some of the Move NY proceeds on the road network would be to retrofit the parkways to accommodate bus and truck traffic. The first priority should be the Belt Parkway which links Staten Island and JFK airport. It is not right that trucks be forced to use neighborhood streets based on a notion that limited-access highways be reserved for the aesthetic enjoyment of car drivers. Foremost, the limited-access road corridors need to be used to move regional traffic of all types in the most efficient manner possible. Once that is taken care of, then we can focus on the aesthetics.
View this comment in the discussion thread