NEW YORK—Three of the MTA’s transportation agencies are becoming more efficient through increased productivity and better use of their resources, said officials on Monday.
Millions of people living in the Tri-State area use public transport for both daily commutes and weekend trips. But travel times don’t always go according to schedule, due to track work.
Yet, things may be improving. Representatives from the New York City Transit (NYCT), Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), and Metro-North described how their agencies are working on this, aiming to save money while better serving customers. They spoke before the Capital Program Oversight Committee.
The NYCT has cut down its set-up and take-down times, and a representative said they are expediting construction by closing segments of tracks for 9-to-16-day periods from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Veronica Vanterpool, associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said these approaches could work, “as long as they can balance customer needs;” and she added that spending less time on construction would be beneficial “as long as the customer has a reliable way home.”
It’s important to “make sure that riders are not left stranded in the system,” Vanterpool added.
LIRR is scheduling multiple outages at the same time so work crews can “move seamlessly” from one project to the next, said LIRR consultant John Swanson. The hours spent on project closure were taking workers accustomed to using heavy equipment “outside of their area of expertise.”
They expect a six percent boost in productivity.
Swanson said that LIRR is mimicking NYCT’s new methods in replacing track parts. Swanson used an example of a “failed segment” in a tunnel beneath vents where rainwater was coming through. They identify these failing parts and repair them, rather than replacing entire track sections that contain all the broken parts.
Using this method, they expect tracks built in the ‘40s to last another 30 years.
Transportation advocates say the system can work more efficiently, and note the $500 million the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has saved under Jay Walder, who recently resigned as chairman.
Among the areas that can work for less are component repairs in stations, according to Cate Contino, coordinator of the Straphangers Campaign. “Up until a year ago they did it all at one time once every thirty years. Now they have a mechanism for going in and doing it one at a time,” Contino said.
“They have saved money, time, labor,” Contino said. Track work and station repair have caused delays for riders—although some delays are expected with a system running 24 hours, seven days a week.
A joint audit by the city and state comptrollers released in July details MTA’s lack of efficiency with repair work from 2009 to early 2011, which includes consistently going over its budget, starting work late, and ending work early.
“Our audit found that MTA’s service diversions are increasing in frequency and leaving taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars in cost overruns,” said State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli in July.
Venterpool noted “the MTA is really not that different from all the transportation agencies all around the country” in terms of wasting resources and going over budget, even though it is “such a large agency.”
MTA’s budget for 2011 is more than $12 billion, and is expected to increase to over $15 billion in 2013.
Friends Read Free