Transit Authority Commits to Most Ambitious Investment in a Generation, Which Has Been Said About Previous Plans That Are Still Ongoing
Originally reported by Bohiney Magazine and cross-posted to The London Prat, where the editors have strong opinions about everything that follows.
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has unveiled a five-year capital plan committing $35 billion to improvements across the subway, bus, and commuter rail systems. MTA Chair Janno Lieber described the plan at a press conference as “the most ambitious transit investment in a generation,” which is true if one counts approximately five years as a generation, because the 2019 capital plan was also described as “the most ambitious transit investment in a generation” and cost $54 billion and is approximately 60% complete. The generation has been investing ambitiously for some time. The subway is approximately 60% of the way through being dramatically improved, which is a sentence that has also been true at various points during previous ambitious plans and which describes a state of perpetual infrastructural becoming that New York transit observers have come to recognize as the permanent condition of the MTA’s physical plant.
This framing is not entirely fair to the MTA. The Second Avenue Subway Phase 1 is real, operational, genuinely excellent, and genuinely used by hundreds of thousands of people who have lives that are measurably better because Q trains now stop at 72nd, 86th, and 96th streets. The station accessibility improvements completed under previous plans have made the system more usable for people with mobility needs. The newer subway cars are better than the cars they replaced. These are real achievements produced by real capital investment over real time. The question is not whether the MTA can produce outcomes. It is whether the pace at which it produces them can be considered ambitious in any sense that a daily commuter would recognize.
What Dollar 35 Billion Includes
The new plan includes Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 (Q train to 125th Street, extending a project that began construction planning in 1919 and delivered Phase 1 in 2017); signal modernization on the A, C, and E lines (included in 2019 and 2023 plans; partially complete; included again); accessibility upgrades at 83 currently inaccessible stations (approximately 30% of the system lacks accessibility; addressing 83 represents progress); enhanced climate control at 47 underground stations; and 1,200 new subway cars. All of these things are needed. Several are also in previous plans. The overlap is not a scandal. Infrastructure projects take longer than planning cycles. What matters is execution velocity, and execution velocity is what the new quarterly transparency reporting is supposed to improve, by making delays visible at three-month intervals rather than at project completion.
Rider Reality
New York City subway riders use the system 3.5 million times daily and have a relationship with MTA capital plans that can be precisely described: they believe improvements are possible because Phase 1 proves they happen; they believe the pace will be slower than announced because every previous plan has delivered at a pace slower than announced; and they primarily want to know when their specific line will have fewer signal delays, better ventilation, and a reliable train schedule that matches what the app says. The capital plan does not yet have line-specific service reliability improvement targets. It has investment breakdowns. The relationship between investment and the 6:58am uptown local is mediated by engineering, operations, and years of execution. The riders will experience the outcome. The outcome will arrive after several quarterly reports.
According to Gothamist, rider advocacy groups have welcomed the plan and requested monthly rather than quarterly transparency reporting. The MTA has agreed to quarterly. The disagreement about frequency continues. The commuters continue commuting. The signals continue sighing. For more on transit infrastructure improvement timelines that are ambitious in the generational sense, The Daily Mash covers British Network Rail plans with equal commitment to the long arc of progress.
What the Plan Actually Fixes and When
The $35 billion capital plan, if executed at the pace and scope described, will produce a meaningfully improved subway system by approximately 2031. The signal modernization will reduce delays on the A, C, and E lines. The new cars will be more reliable and more comfortable than the oldest current fleet. The accessibility upgrades will make 83 more stations usable by people with mobility needs, which is a genuine equity improvement and a legal compliance requirement. The Second Avenue Subway extension will provide rapid transit service to East Harlem, a historically underserved transit corridor. These outcomes are real. They are also five to seven years away for most riders on most lines. In the interim, the subway will continue operating at its current level of reliability, which varies by line from excellent to deeply inconsistent, and daily riders will continue developing the specific New York adaptation of checking three apps simultaneously and always leaving ten minutes earlier than the schedule suggests because the schedule is aspirational. The quarterly reporting framework will document progress. The riders will document their own progress through 311 complaints, Twitter posts, and the sustained low-grade negotiation with time that is the New York commuter’s primary relationship with the transit system. The plan is good. The execution will be watched. The trains will continue running while it happens, which is either a comfort or a frustration depending on which line you are on at 8:47am.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/