Tag: transit

politics

Over The Edge

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Yesterday’s New Jersey Transit train derailment at Penn Station, coupled with the Tea Party and Media manufactured debt crisis, finally has sent me over “the edge.” Of what edge do I speak you ask? The edge of the societal cliff where on one side you have secrecy, where you are keeping your head down and out of trouble, and the other where you are exposed, where you’ve stuck your neck out and where it might get cut off.
While I have always tried to have a say in both the way the world around me affects me and the issues that I care about and believe in, I have not taken as active of stance as I could have. I freely admit this and there are many reasons as to why this has happened but but mostly they have been driven by fear.
I have feared how what I say or do could be used against me in the future – the old law of unintended consequences as nothing is now unknown – technology chronicles all.
I have feared how what I say or do could negatively affect my current or future employment opportunities – what would have been unknown would instead be easily findable for those who want to put in the effort.
I have feared how hackers who disapprove of what I say or do could negatively affect the way I live (see the harassment that Anonymous have conducted against Wykcoff resident Parry Aftab, a well-known lawyer and television commentator who is considered an expert in Internet security who runs WiredSafety.org, for example) and the way that family lives.
Lastly, and understandably ranking highest on the paranoia scale, I have feared how various government alphabet agencies, such as the FBI, CIA and NSA, could use this information that I voluntarily give to develop a profile, case file and to track me. In the post 9/11 world we live in, people can disappear down a rabbit hole very quickly and I have been loathe to provide any information that could lead to me falling down one of these holes.
All of this fear negates the positives that could be gained and frankly considering I’m already worried about the grilling my children are going to give me about “what type of a world have I left for them?” I believe now is the time to act.
So, I vowed yesterday to stop living in fear and to move from simply being a critic and a point and click activist (i.e. donating money and/or signing petitions based on emails I’ve received) to more of an active activist.
My friend Brian, someone with which I email frequently about the political issues that we as individuals as well as a nation face, said a few weeks back that,

We do need to organize, become active and make our voices heard. Part of the problem is us. We are silent writing back and forth without making any change. We must become more active.

He now knows how much I took to heart his words. I took them as a call to action and acted. My first act was a simple one: I wrote my own letter, and not a form letter that some special interest group had prepared for me where all I needed to do is “virtually” sign my name to it, about the transit issues that New Jerseyites faced yesterday when a train derailment knocked out one of the two train tunnels that run under the Hudson River, and sent it to Governor Christie. The letter is posted below:

Dear Governor Christie,
Today there was yet another train derailment that occurred in New York’s Penn Station. Since I moved to New Jersey’s Bergen County last year, train derailments at Penn have been happening frequently – basically once a month.
These derailments negatively affect my family as both my wife and I commute into New York City in order to earn our living – we are consistently late to work and/or missing important meetings due to these transit issues.
This is not just our issue; this is an issue that affects the entire state of New Jersey. My family’s income, which is taxed by the State of New Jersey and which New Jersey relies on to fund its many different obligations, is generated in New York City. As these consistent commuting issues are affecting my career and my wife’s career, they are therefore by proxy affecting New Jersey’s tax revenue.
Reliable on-time access to New York City is vital to New Jersey’s bottom line and I therefore strongly suggest that you revisit and restart the ARC Tunnel project which you cancelled. Additional tunnels into and out of Penn Station will alleviate future derailment issues.
Here are two news articles which are related to today’s issues:
1. NJ Transit Derailment Snarls Train Service
2. Evening Delays Expected After Penn Station Train Snarls Morning Rush
Thank you very much for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lipson

I plan to write Governor Christie every single time there is a train issue in the future that the cancelled ARC project would have (eventually when it was completed in 2014) resolved.
However, this is just the start of things for me. I also plan to work on codifying a manifesto which might eventually lead to a platform for a new political party. Maybe I’ll even run for a major political office one day using the process that Americans Elect is starting or even better and probably more effective, I’ll effectively form a think tank like Grover Norquist. His “no tax” pledge is the driving force in pushing the Republican Party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time which has completely altered the way the business of politics is conducted. Considering I want to do the same, which is to “completely alter the way the business of politics is conducted,” he is as good of a role model as any. I’ve put this little nugget at the end of the post as a reward for reading all the way through. Raise your hand and post a comment if you want to be intimately along for the ride.
I’ll close with a Teddy Roosevelt quote which another friend of mine (who is involved with politics but from the “inside” as a Democratic party) has as his email signature:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
~ Teddy Roosevelt from his “Citizenship in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne, Paris from April 23, 1910

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Right Rides

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I learned yesterday of a very interesting option for women in New York City who need a safe way of getting home after a long night out. A non-profit called Right Rides runs two programs about which I will spreading the word, through this site and through my own word-of-mouth, because they might save someone I know from a potentially horrid situation.
These programs are RightRides, where they offer women, transpeople and gender queer individuals a free, late-night ride home to ensure their safe commute to or through high-risk areas, and Safe Walk, where they offer walking escorts for any one who doesn’t want to walk alone. The cars are donated by ZipCar and the organization even won NY1’s New Yorker of the Week award last month.
If you wind up using either of these services, drop me a comment and let me know what they experience was like, how long it took to get picked up, etc.
Via Kirsten

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LIRR Goes New School and I Hate It

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Recently, I took a LIRR train out to visit my mom and was appauled to see that the “big board” train schedule sign has changed from the “old school” rotating sign to a new electronic model. I for one absolutely hate this change. Something major has been lost in the update and its not just the “tick-tick-tick” sound of the sign changing to denote a new train/track update. This modification constitutes a major break from the past and I don’t like it one bit. Not everything needs to be updated because it can be. I cannot believe that after weeks of research, I cannot find a single article about when this “big board” sign changed. For shame MTA and NY for not noticing, or if you noticed, for not deeming it worthy enough to write about.

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My Framed LIRR Monthly Ticket

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“I’m never leaving the city again; I’m terrified of leaving the city.” – Anna Hillen, from a recent NY Times article about the suburbs.

Back in March, 2000, after living at home for 9 months post graduation, I moved into my first NYC apartment. It was a 2 bedroom converted to 3, my room was formerly part of the living room and my roommates were one of best college friends and another guy who happened to not only be a co-worker of my friend but a great friend of one of my best high school friends. In a small world moment, we figured out that we had actually all crashed in the same hotel room in New Orleans during Mardi Gras in 1999. It was exciting and exhilarating to be once again on my own and it was like being a freshman in college all over again, except that I had the riches of all of New York to explore.

A few weeks prior to this momentous event, when my family took me out for a good-bye dinner I raised my glass and gave this toast, “To, unless I really screw up, never having to live at home ever again.”
There were many reasons as to why I hated living at home. A grand sense of emasculation was one. I had so much freedom at college and I basically lost it all when I lived at home. My parents wanted to know where I was going, what I was doing, who I was with and when I would be home. They wanted to know if they should prepare dinner for me and a million of other little things that may seem nice and loving when you’re on the outside looking in. When you are on the inside, its annoying, grating and very quickly it made college feel like it was merely a dream.

Another reason was that I hated the commute with a passion. Mine was about 1.5 hrs one way when you took into account the drive to the train station, the trip in and the walk to work. My father drove me to the station each day (there was a severe lack of parking if you got there after 7:00 AM) which added to my fun as I needed to make arrangements to and from the station each and every day. I hated the way the commute turned people into automatons and I still have a vivid memory of one man who would sit in the same seat each day and would robotically wake up the second the train arrived in Penn Station, stand, grab his briefcase and walk off the train. I found it really scary yet soon enough, I was carrying a travel pillow in my messenger bag because the train motion lulled me to sleep like I was a mere baby.

I hated the way a train schedule dictated my entire life. I hated how I almost missed the train one morning and got into a fight with the trucker driver that caused my delay. He tried and failed repeatedly to properly back his rig up to a loading dock and wound up blocking the street for minutes on end. I was forced to get out of my dad’s car to run about 5 city blocks in order to make it work on time. Of course I had to yell at the guy too – “Don’t you know the train schedules asshole?! There’s only 1 every half an hour and you choose now to fuck this up! Don’t you realize that people need to get to work?!” Sure enough, he got out, hopped down and wound up grabbing my coat and throwing me against a fence. He was about to hit me too until I taunted him with, “Go ahead and hit me, please hit me. My father is in that car back there. He’s a lawyer. I’ll own you.” Definitely one of my prouder moments. Anyway, he put me down, my father yelled at both of us and I ran and just caught the train. Suburbia was making me crack and I needed out.

My hatred for my commute was such that I vowed that when I was finally able to move into the big city, I would frame my monthly LIRR pass as a reminder of what I left behind. A week or so after the trucker incident, I called up one of my friends (my future roommate) and said, “Dude, It doesn’t have to happen immediately but I cannot live at home any longer with no hope. I need to know if you want to look for apartments together. Again doesn’t need to be now. Frankly, I’m not sure if I have the money yet. However, I can’t afford a studio so I need a roommate and wanted to know if you wanted to look together.” His response was miraculously, “Actually, I was just talking to a co-worker today who you sort of know about getting a triple. Would you want to be the third guy?” “Would I? YES!” The second apartment we saw we took and the rest is, as they say, is history.

So, I now have a slightly tattered February, 2000 light green Long Island Rail Road monthly pass sitting on the shelf above my bed. I framed it when I moved into the city in 3/00 and its been with me ever since. I used to think that the house, the deck, the yard, the space, the neighborhood, the car and all the other things the ‘burbs bring with it was worth it if you had a family. I used to say, “This is great for the future. But for now, this sucks.” Now I’m not so sure about the future. I don’t think I ever want to leave the city. Each time I go out to the ‘burbs I have the same feeling: I love to visit but can’t wait to leave. Who needs a house that constantly needs something redone or repaired done when I can live in a hotel? I can’t fathom living outside of an urban environment again, thus my love for that Times article.

My favorite phrase in the entire article was “Adding insult to tedium,” which was used to explain how a mostly non-pedestrian lifestyle caused 15 lbs of weight gain for one commuter. Here are some other good quotes from the article:

“It’s like death out there. I can’t wait 15 minutes in a bagel store to get two bagels. I can’t have people looking at me like I’m crazy when I walk in and put a quarter on the table to get my paper and walk out. I go home and there’s, like, people doing their lawn every five minutes. They seem like normal people but they spend, like, hours working on their lawn.” – Ronn Torossian, President and CEO of 5W Public Relations

“The suburbs have some way of sucking the city out of you” – Brian Lover, VP at the Corcoran Group
“When we come home and walk from the train to our apartment, there’s no one on the street between 7 and 10 p.m. It’s just that feeling of being alone. You walk the dog and there’s no one there.” – Sara Mendelsohn

“I spent many depressing nights at the Hoboken station. If you go out for a drink with friends, you’re always watching the clock” – Andrew McCaul, photographer

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NYC Transit Stats

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I learned 2 very interesting stats during the recent transit strike. The NYC mass transit system moves 7 million people a day. To put that number into perspective, it is greater than:

  1. The total populations of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana and Wyoming combined.
  2. The total populations of Los Angeles and Chicago combined.

In strike related news, I’ve been on a biking kick lately as I biked to work on Tuesday and Thursday due to the strike. Then, yesterday I rode to work because, well, I was used to it. This morning, when the weather was nice, I biked again in Central Park. I love biking and had not been out for a spin in a long time before this strike nonsense. I guess the strike was a good motivator.

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Nicest Commute Ever

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Today, I enjoyed one of the most pleasant commuting experiences ever. Bundled up, I simply rode against non-existent traffic down Madison Avenue from my apartment to my office. Due to the transit strike, the NYPD has closed 5th and Madison so that emergency traffic can get around town. So, it was me and almost no one else cruising down Madison. Aside from my fingertips getting a tad chilly (I had on bike gloves that look like they are 80’s breakdancing gloves), it was so nice that I’m thinking of doing it more often. I was afraid that I would get to work too sweaty and while that may true in the spring or summer, today everything ended perfectly. I think I sweat more riding on the subway believe it or not.

As for the strike itself, I think the union is shooting themselves in the foot. They are going to lose a lot of money via lawsuits for their illegal strike (see NYS’s Taylor Law) and the pension plan that they are fighting over is ludicrous. The idea and implementation of pensions as a whole in this country needs to be revamped because we’ve seen lately that the old model is not sustainable (see Delphia filing for bankruptcy, GE’s recent round of 30K layoffs, etc). The TWU’s inflexibility will only hurt their future workers, not help them, because its setting up a situation where the entire pension “house of cards” will come crashing down at some point in the future instead of proactively managing the change that invariably needs to happen.

I for one am off tomorrow but in a way I hope they keep striking so I can ride traffic-free again on Thursday.

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Train Announcement

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“Ladies and gentlemen, please wait for another train which should be coming behind us. I know it’s crowded. But there is only so much room in my Cadillac. Stand clear of the closing doors.”

There is a definite slow down going on in the NYC Transit system. Do believe the hype. I for one am with the transit workers. The MTA should have taken half of its billion dollar surplus and used it for capital improvements and the other half should have gone to its workers. Then again, maybe they won’t strike. It’s so french.

Via the MTA (which may not be going my way very soon)

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10 Worst NYC Subway Stations

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The NY Daily News today has an article about the worst stations in the NYC Subway System. Here is a quick location breakdown: 5 are in the Bronx, 2 are in Manhattan, 2 are in Brooklyn and 2 is in Queens.
Not surprisingly, the station the paper lists as a shining example of what a subway station should be like is in the UWS right by the Museum of Natural History (81st St. and Central Park West. B/C station). After the jump, read the full article is you so choose.

Dirt & danger: 10 worst stations

By PETE DONOHUE

Thursday, November 3rd, 2005

If your subway train pulls into these subway stations, you may not want to get off. They are worthy of a subway hall of shame – 10 stations so run down and neglected they’re an insult to a city that bills itself as the capital of the world.

Peeling paint, crumbling concrete, leaks and grime are the norm.

The Daily News picked these hell hubs as among the worst in the 468-station network, after inspecting numerous stations suggested by riders, transit advocates and watchdog groups like the New York City Transit Riders Council and the Straphangers Campaign.

One dilapidated station is among the 46 slated for total rehabilitation in the next five years; another is being razed and rebuilt with federal funds.

Two others on the list had been slated for total makeovers, but were dropped from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 2005-2009 capital plan because of insufficient funds.

The Transit Authority said it sets rehabilitation schedules based on criteria such as usage, structural condition and location. But money also is a big factor.

“We have a limited amount of money for our station rehabilitations and there is only so much work that can be done,” TA spokesman Charles Seaton said. “We don’t want to disrupt the system with too many closings at one time.”

A few of the stations feature obvious safety hazards. All are dismal and in dire need of work.

And transit union leaders charged yesterday that workers performing critical day-to-day maintenance are being shifted to cleaning tasks – trying to hide critical problems with a veneer of cleanliness.

About 50% of subway stations have been brought to “state of good repair” since the 1980s, when a campaign to reverse decades of neglect began, according to MTA documents.

But the following 10 stations, used by about 100,000 riders a day, have been left behind.

  1. 205th St./Norwood, the Bronx, D line:
    D stands for decrepit. Or disgraceful or disgusting – take your pick. All would apply to this station at the northern end of the D line. The ceiling almost uniformly is blighted by ridges of peeling paint. Crumbling concrete exposes rusted and corroded steel beams. Unsightly leak-caused streaks run down platform pillars. A solidified orange ooze hangs from pipes above like chemical icicles.
    Wall tiles are yellowed, cracked and stained. A putrid stream of water slowly moves between the tracks. Liquid also drips into a bucket on the platform – and it hasn’t rained in at least a week.
    “It’s one of the worst I have seen,” said Marvin Melendez, 26, an expediter from the Bronx. “You start your day on an ugly note.”
  2. 182nd/183rd Sts., Fordham area, the Bronx, B and D lines:
    This station has all the charm of Rikers Island. The large mezzanine is divided into sections by long, floor-to-ceiling stretches of black, iron barriers. The smell of urine is overpowering. And it’s just as grim downstairs. Unmoving water, filled with gunk and streaked with oil, sits on the platforms along soiled walls. The drains look clogged. Peeling paint, disintegrating concrete and missing tiles complete the dismal picture. “It’s depressing and dirty,” said Jessica Morales, 21, of the Bronx, as she waited for a train with her 1-year-old daughter, Ashley. “It makes you not want to be here.”
  3. Third Ave./138th St., South Bronx, No. 6 line:
    A drab stairway rises from one platform to a small landing shrouded in darkness. A cluster of burned-out, uncovered light bulbs hangs from the ceiling. “It’s definitely a haven for bad things to happen,” said Antonella Misciagna, 21, a Bronx college student, not at all pleased that her train was taken out of service for reasons never voiced by the conductor. The scene’s familiar to anyone who has been to the Norwood, Brook Ave., or 21st St. stations. It’s not to Misciagna, a college student from the Throgs Neck section of the borough. “It’s gross,” she says, boarding another train – and vowing never to return.
  4. Bowery, Chinatown, Manhattan, J, M, Z lines:
    This station is a throwback to the 1970s. Graffiti marks nearly every pillar, as well as stairwells and walls. There are even scrawls on the tunnel wall inches from the electrified third rail. Black soot covers stretches of concrete, the walls are soiled and yellowed, the platform filthy and grimy.
    “It’s not safe,” said Pamela Chia, 35, a Brooklyn secretary who chose to wait on a stairway landing for a train rather than on the platform. “It looks like a dead zone,” Raymond Watkins, 42, a trucker from Manhattan, said. “It looks like it’s been closed for 30 or 40 years and they opened it for business without doing anything.”
  5. Brook Ave., Mott Haven section, the Bronx, No. 6 line:
    This station stinks. Literally. A revolting odor descends from vents between sidewalk grates and the underground platforms. It comes from catch basins below the sidewalk, where muck and rotting garbage sits. “Oh, my God!,” Ronnie Smith, 41, of Brooklyn, exclaimed seconds after he entered a putrid zone. “It’s disgusting. Despicable … Even a pet shouldn’t be in this.” The platforms are dotted with blackish grime. Soot or steel dust taint the walls, as do ceiling-to-platform streaks, cracks, pockmarks and more grime. Trash litters the station. Wires hang from above. “They clean but the people don’t cooperate,” Wilson Muniz, 57, a trucker from the Bronx, said. “They throw garbage on the floor.”
  6. Fulton St.-Broadway/Nassau, Financial District, Manhattan, J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5, A and C lines:
    This sweltering hub, a hodgepodge of three separate stations, is a confusing warren. Transferring lines can mean going up and down several staircases, making a U-turn or two, shuffling along sloping passageways and confronting a cluster of signs with route symbols and arrows pointing in different directions. Thousands of travelers zigzag toward their destinations. It also ain’t pretty.
    The southbound No.4 train platform is missing many tiles. The area is coated with dirt, dust, grime, rust and chips of paint. A helmet could come in handy. The signs of decay include a 10-foot stretch along the platform edge where the concrete has fallen in chunks. Black, rubber-like goo hangs from beams overhead. Concrete beams over the platform are badly cracked. Post 9/11 federal funds are to pay for a new complex expected to be done in late 2008.
  7. 21st St., Long Island City, Queens, G line:
    The only good news is that a relatively small amount of people must use this squalid pit as they go to and from work in this industrial area. Steel pillars, completely stripped of paint and badly corroded, stand as underground symbols of neglect. Silence fills the station, interrupted only by the sound of water dripping onto the soiled platform and the periodic roar of trains. Black-and-rust-colored stains, about 4-feet wide and 12-feet high, mar tunnel walls. Across from the platform, there’s a hole in the wall behind a set of tracks. A worker, probably retired by now, apparently wielded a sledgehammer to gain access to a pipe. The hole remains unpatched, another long-forgotten project left unfinished. On the opposite set of tracks, a chunk of concrete rests on the third rail. “It’s dank, dark, falling apart, dirty,” said Daniel McKinley, 32, an artist who lives nearby. “Nobody seems to care. It’s pretty depressing.”
  8. Mosholu Parkway, Norwood section, the Bronx, No. 4 line:
    This is one dangerous dump. Thin wooden beams are barely attached to the platform edges. They are supposed to shorten gaps between the platforms and trains, and provide a place for firm footing. But several are loose and uneven, setting the stage for someone to fall onto the tracks.
    The platform overhangs at the elevated station are weathered and dilapidated. Sections are rotted out and missing. Regulars know to wait downstairs when it rains – then race upstairs when their train arrives. The corrugated metal walls that line platforms are sorry barriers missing much of the drab paint that was applied long ago. Paint also flakes off other walls and ceilings. Trash fills closed-off stairwells no longer in use. It lies on the tracks, on platforms and the mezzanine. It spills from stuffed garbage cans which are in the station schedule for an overhaul in the next few years.
    Erica Ortiz, 20, a cashier, shrugged off the depressing scene. “You expect it,” she said. “You see a lot of train stations in the Bronx that look like this.”
  9. Bay Parkway, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, N line:
    This station has truly gone to the birds. Pigeon droppings are everywhere. The least-liked bird in the city roosts on top of light fixtures on the outdoor, elevated platform, and inside the two entrance buildings. “I frequently catch the N train in Brooklyn and this is the worst for pigeon poop,” said Brooklyn artist James Williams. “It’s a health hazard.” Crumbling concrete, peeling paint, loose metal step plates, stained walls and leaking ceilings round out this Third World picture.
  10. Smith/Ninth Sts., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, F and G lines:
    This elevated station looks like it was abandoned decades ago. Weeds grow from cracks on the chipped and deteriorated platform. Some wooden beams along the platform edges are perilously unstable. The protective overhangs have large holes, paint peels everywhere and concrete crumbles. Faded graffiti remains on the parapets jutting into the sky. “It looks terrible,” said Crystal Jones, 43, a Queens real-estate broker at the station for the first time in years. “It looks neglected.”

But wait! Here’s the way it should be done

There’s a gem of a train station below ground at 81st St. and Central Park West.

The station serving the B and C lines received an $11 million overhaul by the Transit Authority that included concrete work, improved lighting and new wall tiles.

There’s even colorful artwork.

Mosaics abound with depictions of birds, insects and reptiles – a nod to the nearby American Museum of Natural History, which kicked in about $500,000, according to TA officials.

It’s clean, bright and largely free of leaks that make other stations rusty, dismal, moldy messes.

“It’s a very good job,” said Andrew Albert, chairman of the New York City Transit Riders Council. “There is no doubt when you arrive there that you are at a museum station.”

Advocates generally give the TA good marks for the rehabs it has completed.

Other stations that stand out, include:

# Stillwell Ave. terminal in Coney Island, Brooklyn
# Yankee Stadium station in the Bronx
# 74th St./Roosevelt Ave. station in Queens

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Of Course It’s Unavoidable – There Is A Train Ahead Of Us!

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When you travel in the newer subway cars, you are “treated” to hearing an electronic voice talking to you all the time. Like the voicemail woman who welcomes me to Audix (thanks sweetheart). Once in a while you’ll hear a conductor break in and correct the computer – “Next stop is City Hall! City Hall next stop! We are nowhere near the Bronx – this is why people drive the trains!” – and I live for those moments.

The one electronic statement that bothers me the most is when, after not moving for a few minutes, Transmit Woman breaks in and says “We apologize for the unavoidable delay.” OF COURSE ITS UNAVOIDABLE!! We are on a track! It’s not like we can go around it. What genius thought that one up?

This has always bothered me and guess what, it’s going away. The MTA has announced that it is removing “unavoidable” from that statement. Yay. One less thing to get aggravated over.