This column originally appeared in On the way, A weekly newsletter about everything you need to know about transport in the NYC region.
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The U -Bahnen in New York City are not operated by the town hall – they are controlled by the governor, who works 150 miles north of the five districts.
This has been the case since 1953 when the New York City Transit Authority was set up as a state agency that is technically renting the subway system. And throughout the time there was a call that the local transport system returns to local control.
The demand was returning this week when City Compotroller Brad Lander – a candidate for mayor – announced the transport platform of his campaign to explore whether the city could regain control of the U -Bahn, buses and fee -based bridges and tunnels from the MTA. If he checked the agency, Lander said that he would operate every six minutes around the clock U -Bahn trains and unite the city's different transit tariff systems.
“At the moment it is Bonkers that the same system does not enable you to switch from U -Bahn to the Citi bike or from the ferry to the bus,” Griped Lander.
The proposal from Lander would create a new public authority called “Big Apple Transit” led by the city. It is the same pitch by the former city council speaker Corey Johnson in 2019 when he prepared for his own failed mayor run. Johnson would get out of the mayor's race in 2021, race for compatrollers and lose against Lander.
Another candidate for mayor, Senator Jessica Ramos, also supports the city to give the city more control over the transit.
“I always say I would love the mayor of the city of New York, to appoint the New York transit president or a greater say in what is happening in the system,” she said.
In theory, the city could take control of the U -Bahn system relatively easily by breaking through the rental agreement with the MTA. In practice, however, the system would still depend on the financing of Albany – and the moods of the governor and the state legislator.
“I am not for the bureaucratic rearrangement of cover chairs,” said Janno Lieber, chairman of MTA when he was asked about the idea.
Johnson's move on the city's city control came six years ago after the transit service under the former governor Andrew Cuomo, who also runs for the mayor this year, fell apart. The “Summer of Hell” in 2017 ultimately caused the adoption of billions of new financing sources – including traffic jam prices – to fix the aging MTA infrastructure.
When Lander carried out his transport platform on Wednesday, she took the opportunity to browse at Cuomo and describe him as a “catastrophic guide on the transit as a governor”.
“If Andrew Cuomo is mayor, we will not have the world-class transit and viable road guide that the New Yorkers earn,” said Lander.
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, named Lander as the “back of the packing candidate”, who “tries to distort the governor's balance sheet because they have no own”.
“Governor Cuomo has increased operational financing for the MTA annually by $ 2.4 billion and has achieved the greatest capital investment in history, which increased from 125 percent from $ 24.27 billion to $ 54.8 billion,” said AzzoPardi in a statement. “He also built the SECOND Avenue Subway, the Moynihan Zughalle, and made urgently needed repairs on the L-Zug, the feared long-term closures prevented.”
Elizabeth Kim and Ramsey Khalifeh contributed the reporting.
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Emma from Brooklyn
I would like to learn more about traffic jam prices that influence the U -Bahn driverry. I have the feeling that the trains have been overcrowded since the beginning of the traffic jam prices.
Answer
The U -Bahn driver has been a bit impressed since the start of traffic jams on January 5, but it is difficult to connect the increase to toll fees. U-Bahn hobs have clocked 4.2 million entries on Thursday, April 24th, the second most common in one day since March 2020 when the Covid 19 pandemic increased the pendulum pattern in the city. Before the pandemic, there were more than 5.5 million subway journeys on the day of the week.
The daily driver has also increased since January, but the number of people who use the system tends to be higher in spring than in winter. Nevertheless, the MTA reported that around 82,000 cars entered the overload zone south of the 60th Street in Manhattan every day. This followed that some of these drivers became drivers in the U -Bahn system. The MTA points out that the driver rose by 8% compared to this time in the previous year. This could be attributed to traffic jams that push people from the cars and the transit, but also corresponds to the long -term forecasts of the MTA so that the drivers can return to the system if fewer people work from home.
The new heavy goals with heavy goals. The MTA said that as part of a more comprehensive approach to the travel failures in 20 U -Bahn stations in 20 U -Bahn stations in 20 U -Bahn stations. These new gates that replace the horizontal turnstile that are relatively easy to jump will have all glass sliding doors, of which the officials are “very difficult” to open.
Proponents of bourgeois freedoms are not enthusiastic. The MTA works with companies for artificial intelligence to provide software that analyzes real-time material from subway monitoring cameras and issues automated warnings to the NYPD. “If someone acts irrational”.
NJ transit locomotive engineers are about to end. The transit agency, which accuses union members of demanding unrealistic salary increases, asked the office workers to prepare for the work from home in order to save transit seats for essential employees.
Is there a less disturbing way to repair the East River tunnel? The MTA board condemned a resolution on Wednesday that condemned Amtrak's plan to close and close a tube in the next three years, and argues that the slightest problem for commuters from Long Island Rail could lead to massive headaches.
Amtrak generally has poor records when it comes to fixing things. The General Inspector of the National Railroad Company, which has commissioned the Trump government to take over the Penn Station's renovation project, has routinely found information on inefficiency, waste and mismanagement.
Governor Kathy Hochul said she was open to the renaming of Penn Station to Donald Trump – if he sets up the money.
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