NEW YORK CITY-Commuting to and from Manhattan—and on some bus routes, within the outer boroughs—is about to get a whole lot easier.
Governor Andrew Cuomo Monday unveiled a plan to use state funds for the Metropolitan Transit Authority to make a number of service improvements and customer enhancements to the city's subway, bus and commuter rail systems. The MTA's updated financial plan includes new service within all three systems as well as a better station environment, improved communication and new investments in technology to enhance the customer experience.
These investments are made possible as a result of increased state aid first proposed in Governor Cuomo's 2013 executive budget, continued aggressive cost-cutting within MTA operations and increased revenues from fares, tolls, subsidies and dedicated taxes, according to the Governor's office. The MTA's cost containment efforts are on track to reduce annual costs by $1.3 billion by 2017, and new efforts to address costs once considered uncontrollable—such as pensions, retiree health care, paratransit and debt service—are reducing projected deficits in future years. State money also was allocated to MTA improvement in 2012.
“For the second year in a row, the state has invested in significant enhancements and expansions to our state's transit system that will improve the experience of the eight million commuters who use the MTA,” says Governor Cuomo.
The service improvements include the running of the G train every 8 minutes, instead of the current 10 minutes, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., while M trains will operate from Queens to Delancey St-Essex St. in Manhattan on weekends, instead of terminating at Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn as they do now. Service will be restored or added along local bus routes in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens while, in the Bronx and Staten Island, bus routes will either be extended, re-routed or studied to create efficiencies.
Meanwhile, on the Long Island Rail Road, round-trip service will be established between Ronkonkoma and Penn Station every half-hour on weekends and will be restored to Port Washington. Weekend service to Greenport will be extended for 10 weeks. Weekday trains also are being added during the evening rush from Penn Station to Hicksville, Wantagh, Freeport and round-trip to Ronkonkoma.
New York City Transit will spend $7.9 million annually on the new service, as well as $5.9 million to add track and station cleaning, more controllers to manage service on numbered subway lines, better turnstile layouts and more security cameras. NYCT declined to comment. The LIRR will invest $2.6 million in five new weekday trains, half-hourly weekend service to Ronkonkoma and Port Washington, and weekend service to Greenport for an additional 10 weeks.
Metro-North Railroad, which added 230 new trains per week in service investments announced by the MTA last year, will invest $1.7 million per year to add real-time customer information displays at all of its stations in New York State by 2020.
The updated financial plan also includes $11.5 million for NYCT and LIRR to adjust service, largely to accommodate increased customer demand. The revised plan also includes $11 million in enhancements to the customer experience at stations and in new technology to make it easier for customers to plan and manage their travel.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
