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MAKING TRACKS - Vol. 4, No. 1 - Winter 1998
Entire contents of MAKING TRACKS is copyright © 1998 by Village Crosstown Trolley Coalition,
but may be reproduced either in whole or in part with a clear acknowledgment of the source.
Please report any errors to us at VCTC. Thanks.
Inside this Issue
"Fare Deals" Adopted by MTA Pose New Transit Challenges
A Garden Path to the East Village
Trolley Topics
Letter from the Editor
By William K. Guild
In a stunning development hailed by riders, transit advocates and civic leaders, Governor Pataki has announced monthly, weekly and daily transit passes valid for unlimited rides on New York's subways and buses. The plan was quickly approved by the MTA Board and becomes fully effective next July. Coupled with last July's introduction of free transfers between buses and subways and the new 11-for-10 MetroCard discount, NYC Transit will have achieved in barely a year several initiatives long urged by VCTC and others, moving from an archaic fare structure to one encouraging wider and more intensive use of the transit infrastructure. The challenge now will be to improve the level of service, particularly for surface transit, in order to retain the anticipated new levels of ridership.
Specifically, monthly and weekly passes will be priced at $63 and $17, respectively. A daily "fun" pass, aimed mainly at tourists and other visitors, will cost $4. Seniors will be eligible for half-price monthly and weekly passes. And express bus commuters, whose one-way fares are being reduced from $4 to $3, will receive an even greater incentive to rely on transit starting in July, when $120 monthly passes will also provide unlimited rides on subways and local buses. Like other transit observers and advocates, we could nit-pick some details--and we will not hesitate to urge further changes--but the adoption in principle of a time-based fare structure is an enormous move in the right direction.
Just one year ago MAKING TRACKS endorsed MTA plans to eliminate the "two fare zone" in the city and offer volume discounts to MetroCard customers. At the same time we urged reluctant officials to explore additional fare initiatives designed to draw more riders onto the system, noting that New York stood virtually alone among American cities in offering neither monthly tickets to regular customers nor day passes to visitors (see table in MAKING TRACKS, Winter 1997).
We considered the official cost/benefit projections overly pessimistic, since revenues lost by eliminating the "double fare" bonanza might well be offset by new customers attracted to transit by the fare innovations. With the first of these initiatives--free transfer between buses and subways--in place for six months, it seems that even we were overly pessimistic. Indeed, revenues increased so dramatically that some politicians and public interest advocates promptly began scrambling for ways to spend the "surplus"!
This so-called surplus, actually a reduction in operating deficit, is good news for transit supporters, but must be kept in perspective. Modest early increases in ridership translated into monthly revenue increases of less than 3% over the previous year and will be maintained only if an improved level of service can be provided for intermodal (subway to/from surface transit) transferees. The 11-for-10 discount for those willing to advance $15 or more for a MetroCard "refill" could swallow any surplus even before time-based passes appear. While we expect revenue losses to be offset, at least in part, by further ridership increases and greater system use, unwarranted euphoria could give way to yet another downward spiral of deferred maintenance and service cuts.
VCTC congratulates NYC Transit on the success of its intermodal transfer policy and remains cautiously optimistic that the new fare initiatives will prove even more successful. In gauging success, however, the main goal should be increased ridership rather than enhanced farebox revenues. Any new transit customer should be able to expect comfort, convenience and reliability at a reasonable fare. But to entice drivers from the highways, fares not only must be reasonable, but must be perceived as reasonable compared to automobile costs.
Many drivers avoid transit simply because, with a car in the garage, a particular trip or even daily commuting by auto is perceived as essentially free. Of course, drivers complain about gas taxes, tolls and parking fees, but so long as these are competitive with transit fares, many will opt for the "freedom" of the highway. A time-based transit pass restores some competitive balance, since for a pass holder the incremental cost of a particular trip is zero. This has been recognized by the commuter railroads for over a century; the very term "commuter" was derived from the railroads' practice of commuting or reducing the fares of regular riders.
Massachusetts has gone further in "leveling the playing field" by requiring auto insurers to grant substantial premium discounts to customers who purchase transit passes. While some may view this as an indirect transit subsidy coerced from the insurance companies, regular transit riders are far less likely to have accidents or make insurance claims and insurers as well as the public will benefit from increased transit use.
Of course, transit is subsidized even in New York (although subway riders here pay the highest percentage of operating costs of any transit users in the country), but so is automobile usage. While transit subsidies are well-defined and publicized, those for highway users are largely concealed in numerous programs administered by all levels of government. There is little agreement on the overall total of road subsidies or even on the items which should be included in the calculation, but it is clear that the motorist who commutes by car receives a subsidy that would make a subway rider blush. If the public must subsidize transportation, it should encourage the most efficient forms and not shortchange transit in favor of expanded automobile use.
VCTC has long urged that New York's subways and surface transit have a uniform fare structure. Indeed, we see the Village Crosstown primarily as a "feeder" line for the subways and other north-south transit lines, with reconversion to light rail offering easy access to transit-starved areas in the East and West Villages for the first time in decades. The bus-subway transfer was a significant step toward fare integration. Monthly and other time-based passes are a further move in the right direction.
Virtually all modern light rail systems use a "proof of purchase" fare system requiring passengers to produce valid tickets for "spot check" inspections on board. Riders without tickets or passes are subject to fine, but compliance rates have been remarkably high wherever this system has been employed. The main advantages are that the vehicle operator is not involved in fare collection and passengers can board through any door. Safety and efficient operation are enhanced, dwell times are reduced and passengers distribute themselves, naturally and evenly, through the entire vehicle or train. This system should be adopted for any light rail line built in New York, and integrated into the MetroCard structure for both time-based passes and discount fares.
Innovative fare policies do work. MTA's introduction of free subway/bus transfers last July produced a dramatic 17% citywide increase in bus ridership after years of steady decline, according to preliminary results for September 1997. The M8 crosstown bus fared even better with a 23% gain. Unlimited ride passes can be expected to produce further ridership growth. The one-day pass would be especially popular with tourists visiting the Village, who could make short hops on the M8 bus--and later trolley--without paying additional fares.
With bus-subway transfers and bulk discounts in place, and time-based fares due in July, it is appropriate not only to see how far we have come in so short a time, but to make sure we are building on a firm foundation. Gimmicks, give-aways and a crazy quilt fare structure will not secure the future of transit in New York. Undermining time-based passes by offering "bargain" single or multi-trip fares may be the fastest way to reverse the progress that has been made.
There must be a place for occasional travelers, those who do not travel every day, but who should be given some incentive to use transit when they do. The 11-for-10 bonus, which is in line with discounts offered in other cities, ought to encourage the transit option for these travelers.
Other changes are in order for the occasional rider who does not use a time-based pass. The easiest and most obvious is elimination of the problematic one-transfer policy. Permitting unlimited rides within two hours of entering the transit system would automatically eliminate the need for special "three-legged" transfers and other inequities now facing some customers, all without significant revenue loss. Including subway-to-subway transfers would resolve at least some of the capacity issues examined in the MTA's East River Crossings Study without a penny of capital expenditure.
The TransitChek program must also be coordinated with time-based passes. Under changes in the federal tax law urged by New York's Senator Moynahan in another effort to "level the playing field," an employer now may deduct up to $65 per month for public transit fares provided or reimbursed to an employee, with no income taxable to the employee. The maximum benefit currently available for NYC Transit users, a $60 MetroCard, is good for 40 trips within a single calendar month. We hope not only that a $63 unlimited pass is available under this program by July, but also that TransitChek is used more widely and promoted more effectively. If significant numbers of city employers offer their employees this $756 tax-free annual raise, unlimited monthly passes will become available to hundreds of thousands of potential transit riders.
Fare innovations can go a long way toward encouraging urban travelers to use transit rather than driving, but new customers will not be retained without high-quality service. Most important are reliability and comfort, the first casualties in any budget crunch. If the MTA and its political supporters are serious about attracting and retaining new customers, however, they must take steps to increase capacity. As recognized in the MTA's recent MESA study, light rail can and should play a significant role in this effort.
Recent fare changes have increased the popularity of intermodal trips, reversing a long decline in surface ridership. This trend, apparent in the first months of free subway-bus transfers, will accelerate with unlimited ride passes. Surface capacity constraints will not be overcome by flooding congested thoroughfares with more diesel buses. This is especially true on the congested crosstown routes of Manhattan. For the last four years we have been describing light rail's superiority in comfort, speed, reliability, capacity and economy, over other modes of urban transit. It is now time to bring light rail transit back to New York.
By George Haikalis
The bulldozing of four community gardens on East 11th St. in the East Village, only a block from VCTC's proposed Village Crosstown Trolley corridor, was the culmination of a long battle between two much needed objectives--neighborhood open space and new housing. Nearby residents had struggled for years to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood, investing countless hours of backbreaking effort to clean up and beautify these derelict city-owned tracts of land, all that had remained from the demolished hulks of abandoned buildings.
The tenement houses of "Alphabet City", the community stretching from Avenue A to Avenue D, were built at the turn of the century to house working class families who had come to America from Europe to seek new opportunities. But living conditions in these crowded buildings became unbearable, and many civic reformers pressed for better housing and more park land. The East River Park and the high rise housing built nearby in the 1940s and 1950s (see "East River Park: Rediscovering an Urban Oasis by Trolley" in MAKING TRACKS, Fall 1997) were the result. After the city's severe financial downturn in 1970 few resources were available to complete the rebuilding of the community. Families that had prospered left, and the housing that remained fell into disrepair. New residents moving to the area lacked the financial means to upgrade existing buildings. Landlords gave up and left many buildings abandoned.
Through all the difficult times many residents remained and new pioneers moved in. Much of the housing stock, though deteriorated, was of substantial construction. Many community groups and individuals began the job of rebuilding the East Village. The creation of community gardens was the most obvious manifestation of the neighbors' tenacity. With the city's economic revival in the 1980s, property values began to turn around. The city faced the dilemma of finally being able to dispose of long delinquent property for substantial sums but with the loss of citizen-constructed assets. Thanks to well organized local efforts, a compromise evolved that would allow private developers to build new or rehabilitated housing, setting aside some units for low or moderate income families, while preserving some community gardens. That compromise, however, shows signs of unraveling.
The loss of neighborhood open space remains a serious problem. VCTC's plan, a corridor for light rail in a pedestrian street, calls for a crosstown trolley to operate from the Hudson River Park at West St. to Tomkins Square Park at Avenue A in an auto-free Christopher St. Eighth St. and St. Marks Place. Removing cars and reusing the space for grass, trees and other urban amenities opens up many opportunities for new community gardens. From Avenue A to Avenue D the crosstown trolley would use East 10th St., the original route of the trolley built over 120 years ago. VCTC's initial plan suggested leaving this segment of the route open to local traffic, because few retail establishments face this street, and pedestrian traffic is light.
Options that include more open space and community gardens and less space reserved for parked cars are possible and VCTC welcomes a dialogue with our neighbors in the East Village on this issue. In particular the traffic circle just east of Avenue D could be freed of parked cars and set aside for public open space including a landscaped trolley turnaround. With the superior transit service offered by the crosstown trolley, fewer residents would need cars to get around. The concept of shifting scare urban space for parked cars to public open space, with community gardens, could be extended throughout the East Village.
The Committee for Better Transit's Second Ave Trolley proposal and the MTA's Avenue D trolley plan would dramatically transform the accessibility of Alphabet City, far removed from the nearest subway line. VCTC's proposed crosstown trolley would enhance those plans. Trolleys and gardens make a great combination.
Promised for nearly sixty years, the Second Avenue subway remains a planners dream. MTA's Manhattan East Side Study (MESA) recently concluded that only the northern half of this tunnel project, from 63rd St. to 125th St., could be built in the foreseeable future. Many transit advocates feel that, as important as this project is, an affordable first step would be a light rail project on a pedestrianized Second Avenue. The Institute for Rational Urban Mobility (IRUM), a recently formed not-for-profit corporation, plans to host a coalition for a Second Avenue light rail line. The proposed line would cross VCTC's Crosstown Trolley in the East Village. To join this coalition please call 212-475-3394.
The MESA study is considering a new trolley line, further east along Avenue D, in its short list of alternatives. Starting at Union Square this line would serve the thousands of East Village and Lower East Side residents and businesses that are far removed from the subway system. For more information on this project call 718-694-5164.
Tracks will soon be installed for the 9.5 mile initial segment of the Hudson-Bergen light rail line, expected to open early in the new millennium. By this summer construction should begin on the streets of Downtown Jersey City near Exchange Place. While Mayor Giuliani continues to "study" the fate of the 42nd St. trolley, NJ Governor Christy Whitman is moving full speed ahead on light rail transit. Village residents will be soon be able to catch a glimpse of NJ's waterfront trolley cars by looking across the river. VCTC hopes this new line will serve as a wake-up call for trolley projects throughout NYC. For information on the NJ LRT call 201-946-4100.
Letter From the Editor
Dear Reader,
In this issue of MAKING TRACKS we describe how the MetroCard has helped bring the NYC transit fare structure in line with other major cities, as well as opportunities for improved service as the system attracts more customers. Also, the need for light rail transit remains strong as communities seek to improve the quality of life with both better transportation and more open spaces. We apologize for the delay in publishing this issue of MAKING TRACKS which was due to factors beyond our control. Our commitment to the cause of light rail transit in the Village remains strong. All of us at VCTC will work to bring you the most accurate, up-to-date information and commentary concerning transit in NYC in general and light rail in particular. Thanks for your continued support.
Michael Goodman, Editor
NY Today
TimeOut New York
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