"Forget your Transit Experts"

[LGA Link N Train]

Oh ho ho, what do we have here?

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-laguardia-airtrain-cuomo-subway-20200526-vhumaqz66fb4lkrvlut2vrpguq-story.html

Quote

A rendering of the AirTrain approaching East Station at LaGuardia Airport.(Office of Governor Andrew Cuomo)

Gov. Cuomo on Tuesday defended his plan to construct a $2 billion AirTrain to LaGuardia Airport, saying the project faces less opposition than an alternative plan to extend the subway to the travel hub.

The AirTrain — formally dubbed a “people-mover” — would require travelers to take the No. 7 train or Long Island Rail Road to Mets-Willets Point before paying a second fare for a ride to the airport. Many advocates believe Cuomo should instead push for an expansion of the N line, which would create a one-seat ride to LaGuardia.

“Forget your transit experts,” Cuomo said at a news conference. “You know what’s more unpopular for the people in the neighborhood that are affected? The subway plan.

“I want projects that are real as opposed to theoretical," he added. "When the world is perfect, then I’ll do it (the subway expansion).”

The comment marked the first time since Cuomo proposed the AirTrain in 2015 that he admitted it is not an ideal solution for transit riders to get to the airport. He said politics — not transportation policy — drove his decision to sink the subway expansion plan.

Unlike the subway extension, the AirTrain would not require the seizure of private property.

“I don’t want a project that’s going to be in court for 150 years,” Cuomo said. “When I say I’m going to do something, I actually do it.”

Elected officials in the 1990s supported the expansion of the N train to LaGuardia. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and then-Queens Borough President Claire Shulman pushed for the project, but it was taken off the table after the 9/11 terror attacks required the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to shift resources to construction projects in lower Manhattan.

Ben Kabak, a transit expert who runs the blog Second Ave. Sagas, thinks the governor should revisit that idea.

“Instead of working with transit experts to improve subway access in a transit desert and create a project that benefits the city, the governor has empowered NIMBYs to block real mobility improvements while promoting a backwards AirTrain with an overinflated price tag,” said Kabak. “A subway extension is no more or less likely to wind up in court than the AirTrain.”

The threat of lawsuits hasn’t stopped Cuomo from pushing through other policies. At a briefing on Saturday the governor said “on any given day if we don’t have three lawsuits, something has gone wrong.”

Cuomo’s people-mover isn’t yet a done deal, however. The Federal Aviation Administration must approve the project’s environmental impact study and seek public comment, a process that will last until at least April 2021.

The feds may also need pony-up funding for the project to be built as the coronavirus pandemic has bled money from New York. Cuomo is slated to head to Washington Wednesday to ask President Trump for federal aid for the state, including money for the AirTrain.

Even if Trump plays ball on the project, Queens community groups could still get in the way.

Frank Taylor, president of the Ditmars Block Association, last week wrote a letter to the White House stating the rail link was “misguided, lacking any real public benefit.”

Taylor said the pandemic has already cratered the finances at the Port Authority, which would build and operate the AirTrain.

“The fiscal crisis that the Port Authority is facing makes the funding of the Cuomo AirTrain extremely problematic,” Taylor wrote.

 

A "LaGuardia Link Train" would still bring a lot more Transportation value at the end of the day, yet Cuomo doesn't see that. Oh well. 

[R10 2952]

The transit experts should hold their own conference and tell people to "forget Cuomo".  Then escalate the dispute to the appropriate medium if need be; WWE or whatever...

 

[bobtehpanda]

What's really weird about him suddenly talking about this is that I think everyone had accepted this as fait accompli. Guess it's not anymore and Cuomo is scared. AOC did throw her hat into the ring a few months ago.

[Lex]

You'd think stacking it could alleviate many concerns over property...

[B35 via Church]

Quote

“I want projects that are real as opposed to theoretical," he added. "When the world is perfect, then I’ll do it (the subway expansion).”

That's good, because perfection won't be necessary for the state of New York to not have you forever be its Governor.

[Deucey]

Interesting that all the goodwill he earned from the COVID Conferences and being educator/consoler-in-chief is being squandered with the authoritarian BS a la Trump.

[M5viaRiverside]

As seen with the Train shutdown, it seems that piecemeal fixes and half baked attempts at 'state of the art' projects is the most NYC can expect for in terms of transportation investment. All unilaterally decided by the governor, it seems as though he would rather choose the easier route and claim he got the project done rather than opt for one that would benefit more people in the long run but take longer to approve and build.

[Collin]

I was in favor of the Cuomo  train plan.  The technology that was used had been successfully deployed elsewhere, and it averted 15 months of chaos  that would've been caused by completely closing it.  The MTA needs to be open to new ideas (that make service better, not cutting service like ending 24/7 permanently) rather than being so set in their ways, and I'm glad that Cuomo pushed for that.  Now if only he could figure out why projects like East Side Access and 2nd Ave get delayed many times over and cost many times what was originally planned, he would really be onto something.

My issue with Cuomo's infrastructure plans is that they're often focused on fast and cheap rather than getting it done right.  The best example of that is the LGA AirTrain that won't save anyone time.  The Mario Cuomo Bridge with no transit is also an example.  While one could make that case for the  tunnels, I don't think that's a good example.

[Deucey]

27 minutes ago, Collin said:

I was in favor of the Cuomo  train plan.  The technology that was used had been successfully deployed elsewhere, and it averted 15 months of chaos  that would've been caused by completely closing it.  The MTA needs to be open to new ideas (that make service better, not cutting service like ending 24/7 permanently) rather than being so set in their ways, and I'm glad that Cuomo pushed for that.  Now if only he could figure out why projects like East Side Access and 2nd Ave get delayed many times over and cost many times what was originally planned, he would really be onto something.

My issue with Cuomo's infrastructure plans is that they're often focused on fast and cheap rather than getting it done right.  The best example of that is the LGA AirTrain that won't save anyone time.  The Mario Cuomo Bridge with no transit is also an example.  While one could make that case for the  tunnels, I don't think that's a good example.

The first doesn’t jibe with the second.

Faster & Cheaper =/= Good and right. Suppose those polymers fail the next time a significant storm floods the tunnel? Now a new tunnel wall has to be built AND the cables replaced, vs if they just rebuilt the whole thing and repositioned the cables.

Shortcutting a critical piece of infrastructure is no way to get to a state of good repair. It’s like having a leaky oil pan on your car and just putting on gorilla glue hoping you don’t have to replace the gasket. The leak will return soon.

Semi-temp fixes cost more in the long run.

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

5 hours ago, Deucey said:

Interesting that all the goodwill he earned from the COVID Conferences and being educator/consoler-in-chief is being squandered with the authoritarian BS a la Trump.

Cuomo is an egomaniac in similar ways to Trump. However, Cuomo is typically more meticulous with how he achieves certain things. The fact that Cuomo has high favorability during this time period simply because he does these conferences says a lot. You would also think given Trump's policy record, people would actually look to vote for people who actually will work for them instead of someone who the media promotes based on "electability" and tone, but I digress. 

47 minutes ago, Collin said:

I was in favor of the Cuomo  train plan.  The technology that was used had been successfully deployed elsewhere, and it averted 15 months of chaos  that would've been caused by completely closing it.  The MTA needs to be open to new ideas (that make service better, not cutting service like ending 24/7 permanently) rather than being so set in their ways, and I'm glad that Cuomo pushed for that.  Now if only he could figure out why projects like East Side Access and 2nd Ave get delayed many times over and cost many times what was originally planned, he would really be onto something.

My issue with Cuomo's infrastructure plans is that they're often focused on fast and cheap rather than getting it done right.  The best example of that is the LGA AirTrain that won't save anyone time.  The Mario Cuomo Bridge with no transit is also an example.  While one could make that case for the  tunnels, I don't think that's a good example.

However, he did at the eleventh hour overriding what was already going to be set in place, and even then the MTA board (full of Cuomo appointees) in general even went with it, which was in stark contrast to previous studies saying that the method in particular could potentially expose people to silica dust. All for him to score brownie points with his interests (mainly real estate), while duping regular people to make it look like he's working for them.  Since this new option wasn't studied again after the initial study, we don't exactly know what will be the long term outcomes and impacts of this project(and not just the tunnel itself). If anything happens and is notice, it'll likely be when he's long gone.

Edited May 28, 2020 by BM5 via Woodhaven

[Jsunflyguy]

12 minutes ago, Deucey said:

The first doesn’t jibe with the second.

Faster & Cheaper =/= Good and right. Suppose those polymers fail the next time a significant storm floods the tunnel? Now a new tunnel wall has to be built AND the cables replaced, vs if they just rebuilt the whole thing and repositioned the cables.

Shortcutting a critical piece of infrastructure is no way to get to a state of good repair. It’s like having a leaky oil pan on your car and just putting on gorilla glue hoping you don’t have to replace the gasket. The leak will return soon.

Semi-temp fixes cost more in the long run.

I feel like people approved of the  fix because Cuomo stuck it to the  and now that he's using that same unilateral authority for his own political convenience (as was the case before) a lot of the ole same folks are getting a taste of the ole Albany boot laces.

[Deucey]

1 hour ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Cuomo is an egomaniac in similar ways to Trump. However, Cuomo is typically more meticulous with how he achieves certain things. The fact that Cuomo has high favorability during this time period simply because he does these conferences says a lot. You would also think given Trump's policy record, people would actually look to vote for people who actually will work for them instead of someone who the media promotes based on "electability" and tone, but I digress.

There’s two factors to that:

1) Facebook and Google decimating local news means people are both less informed about specifics and conditioned to responding to soundbites; and 

2) In the case of presidential politics, because we’re now governed by soundbite policy - tweet, presidential news clips, etc - even if Trump has done anything good (and I’m in a politico family, so I have firsthand knowledge), because he controls the optics, Trump is his own worst enemy for his cause. Hence the pivot to murder conspiracies and overt “I didn’t say the ‘N-word’ racism.

Cuomo is at least savvy enough to appear to do something substantive to the general public. It’s the wonks - not including the transit aficionados here - that know how little mass there is to substantive actions he takes. And because of COVID, the Clintonisms he learned as HUD Sec are endearing him to a national audience. If Biden screws up before the convention - which would take a lot since a) polling shows a substantial portion of voters are on the ‘anyone but Trump’ platform and b) he’d have to lose us Black voters - then Cuomo could make a play. But I’m guessing that he’ll end up vetted for and taking a cabinet position in the Biden Administration - to either eventually replace Schumer or “get on the plane to New Hampshire” unlike Mario.

[bobtehpanda]

16 hours ago, Deucey said:

Interesting that all the goodwill he earned from the COVID Conferences and being educator/consoler-in-chief is being squandered with the authoritarian BS a la Trump.

I mean, I feel like sending COVID Marys back into nursing homes also undid a lot of that...

[Deucey]

30 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

I mean, I feel like sending COVID Marys back into nursing homes also undid a lot of that...

On one hand, it’s typical for persons no longer needing acute care to be discharged to a nursing home or convalescent care hospital - so it’s not so much stupid medical policy as it’s “did anyone look at the medical guidelines and the currently in force infectious diseases policy to make sure this is the way to go”.

OTOH, given this started at the same time the other idiot from Queens jumped on the bandwagon of risking seniors’ lives to open the economy (remember late April with the Texas Lt Governor saying this at press conferences), it’s a ‘two cheeks off the same ass’ policy ethos.

What “saves” Cuomo here is that even though he changed the policy quietly, he changed the policy and can apologize. It’s now an “unfortunate error” based on the aforementioned medical policy - with the “we don’t know how this virus works” fact as the backdrop.

Contrast that with the other idiot from Queens not changing course and now having 100k of us deceased and 40 million of us having unemployment claims filed and/or active.

The hot take is “Don’t election anyone from within 2 miles of the Van Wyck to lead anything”; the thoughtful take is that all the normal public cynicism and denigration of politicians as an employment class leads to the situation where the capable do something else and the vain get elected.

[Around the Horn]

18 hours ago, Collin said:

I was in favor of the Cuomo  train plan.  The technology that was used had been successfully deployed elsewhere, and it averted 15 months of chaos  that would've been caused by completely closing it.  The MTA needs to be open to new ideas (that make service better, not cutting service like ending 24/7 permanently) rather than being so set in their ways, and I'm glad that Cuomo pushed for that.  Now if only he could figure out why projects like East Side Access and 2nd Ave get delayed many times over and cost many times what was originally planned, he would really be onto something.

My issue with Cuomo's infrastructure plans is that they're often focused on fast and cheap rather than getting it done right.  The best example of that is the LGA AirTrain that won't save anyone time.  The Mario Cuomo Bridge with no transit is also an example.  While one could make that case for the  tunnels, I don't think that's a good example.

Let's revisit the train tunnel in a decade before we start praising it.

[CenSin]

On 5/28/2020 at 1:41 AM, Deucey said:

Faster & Cheaper =/= Good and right

Funny that you brought up this inequality. It would be good if we got either, but instead, contemporary projects follow this:

slower & pricier & worse & wrong

I’ll name some examples:

• The new South Ferry station with the leaks and no tail tracks, forever limiting throughput on the 7 Avenue local
• The Second Avenue Subway with a scaling down of plans every few decades and the price tag always getting bigger and priorities shifting to form over functionality (no third track at 72 Street, but oversized works-of-art caverns at each station)
• The decades-long campaign to add more timers and slow down trains (only recently being reversed)

[Deucey]

5 hours ago, CenSin said:

The new South Ferry station with the leaks and no tail tracks, forever limiting throughput on the 7 Avenue local

Don’t forget they built it next to the water but decided against flood proofing it.

Then built it again at half the cost of the original station.

[Lawrence St]

17 hours ago, CenSin said:

Funny that you brought up this inequality. It would be good if we got either, but instead, contemporary projects follow this:

slower & pricier & worse & wrong

I’ll name some examples:

• The new South Ferry station with the leaks and no tail tracks, forever limiting throughput on the 7 Avenue local
• The Second Avenue Subway with a scaling down of plans every few decades and the price tag always getting bigger and priorities shifting to form over functionality (no third track at 72 Street, but oversized works-of-art caverns at each station)
• The decades-long campaign to add more timers and slow down trains (only recently being reversed)

Why is this such a priority? I'd rather have a station built right with all necessitates before worrying about art that I'm probably never going to see. Why do the SAS stations even have massive mezzanines in the first place...

[bobtehpanda]

19 hours ago, CenSin said:

Funny that you brought up this inequality. It would be good if we got either, but instead, contemporary projects follow this:

slower & pricier & worse & wrong

I’ll name some examples:

• The new South Ferry station with the leaks and no tail tracks, forever limiting throughput on the 7 Avenue local
• The Second Avenue Subway with a scaling down of plans every few decades and the price tag always getting bigger and priorities shifting to form over functionality (no third track at 72 Street, but oversized works-of-art caverns at each station)
• The decades-long campaign to add more timers and slow down trains (only recently being reversed)

 

14 hours ago, Deucey said:

Don’t forget they built it next to the water but decided against flood proofing it.

Then built it again at half the cost of the original station.

Well, it's "cheaper" in the sense that the initial estimate comes in way underpriced compared to what it will actually finally cost, while also simultaneously being way more expensive than peer projects across the country.

Remember that the MTA is not really a transit agency; it's actually supposed to be rehab for corrupt contractors and also an employment agency for them:

Quote

"New York City Transit and the MTA as a whole for many, many, many years — certainly for the 30 years that I've been here and for many before that — have looked at this as a rehabilitative organization," Senior Vice President Stephen Plochochi said at a transit committee meeting. "We don't take this lightly; we don't let them get away with it."

 

[bobtehpanda]

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Why is this such a priority? I'd rather have a station built right with all necessitates before worrying about art that I'm probably never going to see. Why do the SAS stations even have massive mezzanines in the first place...

The cavern itself is not really the problem; you have to dig out a cavern sized hole if you're digging cut and cover from the top anyways, and filling it in partially would be more trouble than it's worth. (Mining from the side creates a smaller footprint, but takes more time, so is actually more expensive because it requires more labor hours.)

The problem, IMO, is that rather than just leave most of the cavern empty, we build a two-story building in a pit. This doesn't make too much sense, since it's not like you can exit the station from any point on the mezzanine anyways.

The rising cost of station boxes has led to some exploration of alternative approaches; in Barcelona, they solved this by using TBMs large enough to fit stacked platforms for a single track each, and only digging pits for the entrances.

Also worrying about the art is a distraction; the art is only 1% of the budget and that's a requirement for all state projects. If the budgets were actually reasonable this wouldn't really be a problem, and there's nothing wrong with trying to make the subway system slightly more hospitable.

Edited May 30, 2020 by bobtehpanda

[Around the Horn]

4 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

Remember that the MTA is not really a transit agency; it's actually supposed to be rehab for corrupt contractors and also an employment agency for them:

That is still one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever heard 

2 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Why is this such a priority? I'd rather have a station built right with all necessitates before worrying about art that I'm probably never going to see. 

1% of the cost of construction is spent on art. I believe that's a law (but someone else can correct me on that) not to mention that art has been in the subway since before it even opened when the first construction contract was signed. The quote "a great public work worthy of attractive design, even of beauty" is attributed to that first contract for the original 28 stations.

Squire J. Vickers, who designed the tile work of the dual contracts and IND is also quoted as saying, "It is not enough that our stations should be sanitary, commodious and convenient-they must at the same time present a cheerful and attractive appearance to the public." Colored tiles on the walls should "blaze with the brightness of a jewel," providing a 'joyous note like a banner flung from the frowning window of a castle"

[CenSin]

3 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

"It is not enough that our stations should be sanitary, commodious and convenient-they must at the same time present a cheerful and attractive appearance to the public." Colored tiles on the walls should "blaze with the brightness of a jewel," providing a 'joyous note like a banner flung from the frowning window of a castle"

And in 2020, our system fails on all the metrics.

15 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

The rising cost of station boxes has led to some exploration of alternative approaches; in Barcelona, they solved this by using TBMs large enough to fit stacked platforms for a single track each, and only digging pits for the entrances.

Not sure if this was an option for the MTA at the time of planning, but this would’ve also allowed for the possibility of reducing the surface disruption by keeping the construction work underneath only half the width of the road. It’d also make it easier to add 2 more tracks by not doing work directly underneath active tracks and platforms later.

Edited May 30, 2020 by CenSin

[Around the Horn]

1 minute ago, CenSin said:

And in 2020, our system fails on all the metrics.

And that falls squarely on *checks thread title* forgetting our transit experts.

[B35 via Church]

14 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

Remember that the MTA is not really a transit agency; it's actually supposed to be rehab for corrupt contractors and also an employment agency for them:

IDK, while I get that anyone simply working under a contract is a contractor, the word Contractor in & of itself, to me, always had this nefarious connotation to it.... I'm bringing that up because whenever I see someone mention a corrupt contractor, it reads as a double negative.... Like, you seldom, if ever, hear about contractors in a positive light....

As for the totality of that comment, I'd say the MTA facilitating "corrupt contractors" would be more accurate..... If you knew going in that they're corrupt, then why the f*** are you hiring them for.... Delusions of grandeur truly runs rampant with this agency.

[Lawrence St]

34 minutes ago, bobtehpanda said:

The cavern itself is not really the problem; you have to dig out a cavern sized hole if you're digging cut and cover from the top anyways, and filling it in partially would be more trouble than it's worth. (Mining from the side creates a smaller footprint, but takes more time, so is actually more expensive because it requires more labor hours.)

The problem, IMO, is that rather than just leave most of the cavern empty, we build a two-story building in a pit. This doesn't make too much sense, since it's not like you can exit the station from any point on the mezzanine anyways.

The rising cost of station boxes has led to some exploration of alternative approaches; in Barcelona, they solved this by using TBMs large enough to fit stacked platforms for a single track each, and only digging pits for the entrances.

Also worrying about the art is a distraction; the art is only 1% of the budget and that's a requirement for all state projects. If the budgets were actually reasonable this wouldn't really be a problem, and there's nothing wrong with trying to make the subway system slightly more hospitable.

 

21 minutes ago, Around the Horn said:

That is still one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever heard 

1% of the cost of construction is spent on art. I believe that's a law (but someone else can correct me on that) not to mention that art has been in the subway since before it even opened when the first construction contract was signed. The quote "a great public work worthy of attractive design, even of beauty" is attributed to that first contract for the original 28 stations.

Squire J. Vickers, who designed the tile work of the dual contracts and IND is also quoted as saying, "It is not enough that our stations should be sanitary, commodious and convenient-they must at the same time present a cheerful and attractive appearance to the public." Colored tiles on the walls should "blaze with the brightness of a jewel," providing a 'joyous note like a banner flung from the frowning window of a castle"

Thanks for the info. At this rate SAS is never going to be completed.