Ask a New Yorker who takes the metro to relate his underground journeys: he will tell of horrible experiences. Trainsets with an empty wagon, in which a homeless person relieved himself; stations where rats roam the platforms; cars whose air conditioning does not work in the middle of summer; platforms so crowded that people scream that they will fall on the tracks; stations closed without notice; lines where seats have been removed from the wagons to accommodate more people. Regularly, trains stop on the track for long minutes, due to a faulty signal, a frozen switch or the blocking of the previous train. Or a brake malfunctions, a door no longer closes… and the driver indicates that this station is the last and that everyone must get out. These incessant incidents are the cause of millions of delays at work or school, and every year tens of thousands of New Yorkers miss a job interview, a plane, an exam, a meeting. hospital…
Emergency state
During the month of January 2019, delays during working days affected 42,348 trainsets! With its network of 27 subway lines covering 1,065 kilometers and comprising 472 stations, New York is the only city in the United States where you can travel anywhere without a car. But the tracks, signaling, stations and trains are obsolete, due to chronic underinvestment.
In 2017, the metro made the headlines with an annoying statistic – one in three trains late by more than five minutes, while almost all of the world’s subways show between 96% and 99% punctuality -, and a series of accidents: the derailment of a subway in Brooklyn; fire in Manhattan lane leaving nine injured; a train stuck in a tunnel for an hour in the middle of summer, without light or air conditioning, which caused panic and, finally, a new derailment injuring 34 passengers.
The governor of the United States, Andrews, is still in effect. The causes of the dilapidation? For thirty years, local politicians and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public transport authority under the State of New York – Governor Andrew Cuomo appoints its chairman – have accumulated errors. More than $ 1.5 billion in funds earmarked for the MTA has been diverted to other priorities – including the bailout of ski resorts in a snowless winter.
Punctuality statistics were rigged with delays due to outages being attributed to “Congestion of platforms”. Finally, despite the urgency, funding for the rehabilitation of the metro is not assured: for six years, 52% of investments correspond to loans. MTA’s debt will reach $ 42 billion in 2022, with interest accounting for 19% of total revenue.
The slow agony of buses
In New York, the bus is no longer popular. Since 2006, the number of passengers who use it has fallen by 19%, to the point that some experts believe that this mode of transport has entered a deadly spiral: the fall in income leads to a degradation of the service (fewer buses on some lines) and generates pressure to increase tariffs. It’s the perfect recipe for losing more and more customers. Especially since some users are attracted to the services of Uber and Lyft.
However, the town hall and the MTA are trying to revive the bus network, thanks to three improvements. First, the creation of reserved lanes, which today only concern about fifteen lines. The mayor, Bill de Blasio, promised last April that more will be added on 24 streets and avenues, while requiring companies to receive their deliveries at night, so that bus lanes are not congested. Then, the creation of synchronized lights activated by the GPS of the buses. Finally, installation at machine stops allowing payment before boarding the bus, to speed up passenger entry. Expected gain in average speed on the lines: 25%. That is to say 14 kilometers per hour on average, against 11 today. Not sure that this is enough to straighten the bar.
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Staggering costs
The example of the creation of a station in a tunnel under Grand Central struck the spirits. To dig the space devoted to the docks, 900 workers were employed, but an accountant discovered that 200 of them, paid 1000 dollars (878 euros) per day, did not carry out any task! In addition, it takes 25 workers to run a tunnel boring machine, compared to 8 everywhere else in the world. In addition, plumbers, electricians and mechanics are available 24 hours a day in the event of a problem.
“Underground work requires four times more personnel than in Asia or Europe”, notes the consulting firm Arup. Moreover, Governor Cuomo sees no objection to contracts between construction companies and unions (both of which fund his election campaigns) resulting in royal wages. As a result, while building a line costs less than $ 500 million per mile around the world, the cost of Second Avenue Subway has peaked at… $ 3.5 billion per mile!
Latest scandal: in June 2019, an NGO revealed that an MTA worker had received $ 344,144 in 2018 for his overtime (74 hours per week all year round!), In addition to his salary of $ 117,499. The investigation showed that time clocks had been sabotaged and that 19 other employees had received more than $ 300,000 for their overtime.
“The inability to manage the MTA results in agreements to inflate costs between the construction companies and the unions, which is akin to corruption, by tenders limited to two or three companies (compared to seven or eight elsewhere) and by the hiring of consulting companies (sometimes three per project) years before the start of work ”, notes Benjamin Kabak, whose website SecondAvenueSagas.com analyzes the malfunctions of the MTA.
A possible way out of the crisis
Is it possible to put the New York subway back on its feet and stop the drop in ridership, which has reached 5% since 2015? The appointment, at the end of 2017, of Andy Byford as head of the MTA branch in charge of New York City raised hopes of an end to the crisis. This Englishman who worked for the London Underground transformed the Toronto underground in five years, voted best transport system of the year in 2017.
Hailed by users and the press, its Fast Forward plan, launched in May 2018, aims to overcome the state of emergency by renovating signage and improving accessibility to stations, then modernizing trains and tracks. Duration: ten years. Cost: $ 37 billion. Andy Byford has already improved punctuality from 65% to 78%. In addition, a toll will be put in place in 2020 for motorists entering southern Manhattan, which should bring in at least one billion dollars per year, amount which will be devoted to the investments of the MTA.
But the Fast Forward plan is contested by Andrew Cuomo: he finds it too expensive, refuses the increase in tariffs, wants to fire the board of directors of the MTA, challenges the technology used for signaling and requires not to close the line. L during repairs to the tunnel damaged by Hurricane Andy, which will boost costs. Andrew Cuomo arranges never to meet Andy Byford, treating him like an underling running an MTA affiliate. So much so that the city fears Andy Byford will slam the door. In New York as elsewhere, political logic is opposed to efficiency. In January 2020, the publication of the complete audit of the MTA ordered by the governor and the mayor will perhaps provide a clearer picture …
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