Talk Bronx New York

M.T.A. Cuts Delay Some Big Projects Until 2010

The subway station at Smith and Ninth Streets is one of 15 in Brooklyn that will not be renovated as scheduled. Four stations in the Bronx also will wait.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority released a cascade of grim financial assessments on Monday that mean delays in subway station renovations and other major improvements, as well as possible cutbacks in service and increases in fares and tolls.

In a series of public meetings of authority board committees, officials said the authority would be forced to cut projects valued at $2.7 billion from its 2005-9 capital spending program, largely because of soaring costs on construction projects already under way.

The projects being cut include 19 subway station renovations and important projects for the modernization of subway signals and repair facilities. The authority’s chief executive, Elliot G. Sander, said those projects were expected to be included in the authority’s next five-year spending plan, which begins in 2010. But he acknowledged that the authority did not yet know how it would find the financing for that plan.

Officials also said the revenues from taxes on real estate transactions, which have buoyed the day-to-day operations of the transit system in recent years, were falling off at an alarming rate, resulting in a shortfall this year of $122 million. Revenues from the real estate taxes are on track to end the year about $280 million below budget projections.

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Scorching Heat Blankets East Coast

Scorching heat and stifling humidity gripped much of the East Coast on Monday, with the National Weather Service issuing heat advisories as temperatures approached 100 degrees in many areas.

The heat wave is expected to last into Tuesday and prompted officials in Philadelphia and Connecticut to send students in public and parochial schools home early both days and cancel evening programs, The Associated Press reported. The heat caused power failures that interrupted some subway service in New York.

The New York City Office of Emergency Management said it was opening cooling centers for people who do not have air conditioning, and other cities are making similar arrangements. Officials urged relatives and neighbors to check in on elderly, housebound people, who are most in danger during hot spells.

The hot weather extended from New England down through the Middle Atlantic states into the Carolinas.

Weather officials said heat waves are not just uncomfortable, they are dangerous. “Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer,” the weather service said. “On average, more than 1,500 people in the U.S. die each year from excessive heat.”

That is more than the deaths attributed to tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and lightning combined, the agency said.

In New York City, service on the F and G subway lines in Brooklyn was disrupted during Monday’s rush hour by power failures on the subway signals. Officials of New York City Transit said generators were being sent to the affected areas so service could be resumed.

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Mayor & MTA Announce New Express Bus Routes .. IF…

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director and CEO, Elliot G. Sander today announced what could be a new express bus route from the Throggs Neck Section of the Bronx to Lower Manhattan, if - and only if - the congestion pricing plan is approved by the State Legislature and the City Council.

One of the new proposed routes, the BXM-19, would run from Throggs Neck down to Battery Place, serving as an extension to the existing BXM-9 which currently terminates at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street. Currently, passengers of the BXM-9 who work in Lower Manhattan must transfer to a different bus or subway to continue below 23rd Street.

The BMX-19 would provide Bronx residents with a one-seat ride to Lower Manhattan. Taking place at a bus stop at the intersection of Layton and Vincent Avenues, the Mayor noted that he can not yet cut the ribbon on a service that would benefit thousands of Bronx residents because funding does not exist without congestion pricing.

The new express route, along with 44 other new and enhanced routes and over 300 new buses, would be funded under the Urban Partnership Agreement, which would award $354.5 million in federal funds to the City if the Mayor’s congestion pricing plan is adopted.

The Mayor was also joined by Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, City Councilman James Vacca, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Gene Russianoff, Senior Attorney for the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and local resident Audrey Izzard.

“Legislators in every community must keep in mind the benefits congestion pricing will bring and what we give up if they fail to act,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We face a real need for mass transit improvements, and congestion pricing offers the rare opportunity to fund them.

Without that funding, the MTA will not be able to make these projects happen.

The new BXM-19 bus route is one of hundreds of improvements that depend on the federal funding we will be given if we enact a congestion pricing plan.”

“If we’re serious about encouraging people to use public transportation, we must increase travel options for underserved areas,” said MTA Executive Director and CEO Sander. “This route, for example, would speed Bronx residents from Throggs Neck to jobs in Manhattan.”

“Congestion Pricing is critical to the future of New York City,” said Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “That is why we are traveling to many neighborhoods around the city to demonstrate just what kind of mass transit improvements, like new express bus routes, they could expect to see with this new source of funding.”

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Take The Train To The Plane. Plans For LaGuardia Airport Train 

Freight rail lines could be converted into subway lines, new regional train stops could open in the Bronx and a train could take passengers directly to LaGuardia Airport under a 40-year plan proposed by the head of the region’s transit agency.

In a “State of the MTA” speech Monday, Metropolitan Transportation Authority executive director Elliot Sander proposed several long-range projects for the agency that runs the city’s subways, buses and suburban train lines.

The MTA could look to “underutilized or dormant” services like a freight rail line in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and available land in Rockaway Beach in Queens to extend subway service in decades to come, Sander said.

Sander also said the MTA would explore creating a second AirTrain service to connect LaGuardia Airport to Long Island Rail Road service in Woodside, Queens, as well as light rail service on Staten Island and new Metro-North train stops in the Bronx.

Sander said the MTA would add $30 million worth of promised new service this year, increasing service on 11 subway lines and extending several bus routes.

SOURCE: USAToday.com

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