Tag: mta

How farebeating ‘tears the social fabric’

MTA chief Janno Lieber is entirely right: Farebeating “tears at the social fabric,” wreaking damage far beyond the mere theft.

Not that the thefts don’t add up: The practice cost the cash-strapped MTA an estimated $500 million last year. But it’s the more insidious impact that Lieber flagged to The Post editorial board Tuesday.

First, it makes flouting the law these individuals’ first act on entering the transit system, putting them in a frame of mind to act out more. That can go all the way up to terrorizing and assaulting others, both fellow passengers and MTA workers.

Or as Mayor Eric Adams puts it: “If we start saying it’s all right for you to jump the turnstile, we are creating an environment where any and everything goes.”

More, just seeing others getting away with it tells everyone else that law and order are out the window in the transit system. Worse, it encourages others to break the rules: Why be a sucker?

The practice soared during the pandemic and is still far above pre-2020 levels, but the key moment came in 2017, when then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced an end to prosecuting the crime, a policy other DAs then copied and Vance successor Alvin Bragg continues. Vance argued that a $2.75 offense isn’t worth the prosecutorial resources, blithely ignoring the far larger social costs of tolerating it.


Farebeating rose during the pandemic and is still far above pre-2020 levels.
Paul Martinka; MTA Chair Janno Lieber

In fact, he was appeasing the left, which pretends it’s a “crime of poverty,” as if the fare was out of anyone’s reach. (Bragg has even less excuse, since low-income New Yorkers now qualify for half-price rides.)

And knowing the cases won’t get prosecuted discourages cops from enforcing the law at all. Yet arresting these perps often nabs serious criminals. Last October, for example, a farebeating stop wound up catching a repeat offender linked to a slashing on the 1 train earlier that month. As Lieber then noted, “Overwhelmingly, the criminals are farebeaters.”

Indeed, police who stop farebeaters regularly find them carrying illegal guns.

In fact, the city’s huge turnaround on crime began back in the 1990s when then-Transit Police Chief Bill Bratton started a high-profile, systematic crackdown on farebeating. New York City sure could use the same again today.

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MTA unveils new NYC subway cars for A/C line riders

Bet this beats the subway car you rode to work.

The top Metropolitan Transportation Authority brass on Friday showed off some gleaming new, high-tech subway cars they hope to roll into service before the end of the year.

So far, the MTA has ordered nearly 1,200 new R211 subway cars — worth an estimated $3.2 billion — that will feature wider doors for speedier boarding, digital displays with more information, more room for handicapped passengers and security cameras in every car for improved security.

The MTA says A/C line straphangers will get the first crack at the shiny new rides, as well as a look at what the MTA hopes is the future: Subway cars linked together by an open passageway, allowing riders to easily move around and find seats during the rush hours.

The MTA has ordered just two of these open-gangway trains as part of a pilot program so far, but Chairman Janno Lieber and his chief of New York City Transit, Richard Davey, played up the advantages when they invited reporters out for a demonstration Friday.

The MTA unveiled new subway cars it hopes to roll into service before the end of the year.
Paul Martinka
The MTA says A/C line straphangers will get the first crack at the shiny new rides.
Paul Martinka


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There will be security cameras on all the new subway cars.
Paul Martinka


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“We have to test these, we have to try them out and see how they work, see if they fit into the New York environment — there’s a lot of complexity,” Lieber told reporters on the new train car. “But it’s always a milestone when you see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“We wouldn’t have the press on if we weren’t satisfied” with the trains, Davey added. “So far, so good.”

The two open-gangway trains and their traditional closed-car brethren will allow the MTA to finally replace the problem-plagued R46 trains, which date back to the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

The open-gangway trains link together the first five cars and the last five cars of the train, allowing passengers to more easily move between the front half or back half, a setup that is common on major European subways like London and Paris.

The new cars will be compatible with the MTA’s new computerized signaling system that currently powers both the 7 and L trains and can dispatch trains as frequently as every two minutes, allowing officials to dramatically boost capacity.


New connecting cars of the new subway trains.
Each car will be connected with open compartments, allowing for easy transfer.
Paul Martinka

The agency is currently spending hundreds of millions to bring the system to the 8th Avenue and Fulton Street subways to improve the speed and reliability of the A and C trains.

It give transit agencies more space inside for seats and standing room and it allows passengers to quickly move to emptier parts of the train if they choose.

Some New Yorkers mocked the MTA’s apparent embrace of the design on Twitter after the rollout, complaining that foul smells could now pollute several cars instead of one.

Officials said late Friday that if the open gangway pilot is successful, they could convert an option they currently hold with Kawasaki for another 437 R211 cars to the configuration — enough for roughly more 40 trains.

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Hochul’s ‘moderate’ budget plan still leaves New York on a path to fiscal doomsday

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new budget plan includes a record $227 billion in spending, plus at least $1.6 billion in tax hikes. The left wants a lot more, but that hardly makes her a fiscal conservative.

She’d increase taxes on payrolls in the 12-county “MTA region” by $810 million and extend a corporate surtax for three years to raise another $800 million a year.

The plan also boosts the state cigarette tax from $4.35 to $5.35 per pack. (Get set for even more smuggling; this’ll be by far the highest butt-tax in the nation.)

Even if she has no other hikes in there, she’s already far past the “no new taxes” line.

Meanwhile, outlays for schools soar, despite declining enrollment. Medicaid gets a huge bump, too.

We’re all for some small bits of her spending hikes — support for district attorneys and mental-health inpatient beds, for example. But goosing state-funded spending by roughly $7 billion a year, when New York is already staring at a fiscal crisis before her next election, is hardly frugal.

Yes, she’s nixing left-wing demands for vastly more in taxes on the rich and corporations. But the Legislature’s sure to take her budget as just the floor for negotiations. And it’s hard to see what principled objection she’ll make, other than to note that, e.g., the top 1% of taxpayers already cover 40% of the state’s personal-income-tax takes and are the residents most able to skip off to Florida, Texas, North Carolina and so on.

Progressives are eager to kill the Empire State’s golden goose and feast on the corpse. It sure would’ve been nice if Hochul’s opening offer was to bleed the poor bird a little less.

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Grand Central’s LIRR terminal to finally open Wednesday

The long-delayed Long Island Railroad terminal beneath Grand Central will finally open Wednesday – albeit as part of a soft-launch with limited service.

After 15 years of construction on the $11.6 billion transit hub, the MTA will offer some shuttle service between Jamaica, Queens and the new LIRR terminal as the agency slowly rolls out the commuter line, the agency announced Monday.

The first train will leave Jamaica at 10:45 a.m. and is scheduled to arrive at the “Grand Central Madison” LIRR terminal at 11:07 a.m., the MTA said.

The limited shuttle runs will continue for “at least three weeks,” the agency said. After which, the LIRR will run full service from Long Island to the new 700,000-square-foot terminal named for its location running underground on Madison Avenue.

The state agency said the three-week soft launch will allow customers to “acquaint themselves with the new terminal as existing schedules continue.”

The MTA plans to add the new train line schedules to its website and in the TrainTime app ahead of launching full service.


The terminal will open 15 years construction was started.
Stephen Yang

MTA CEO Janno Lieber announced the project would not be completed by the end of 2022 at a monthly board meeting.
Stephen Yang

The express ride from Jamaica to Grand Central Madison will continue as the “Grand Central Direct” line once full service begins.

Trains on the direct line will run between 6:15 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on weekends.

The MTA will honor Penn Station tickets for those traveling to Grand Central Madison during the initial service period, the agency said.

MTA officials and Gov. Kathy Hochul had hoped the extensive project — also referred to as East Side Access — would have been completed before the end of the year, but the opening was pushed back to this month due to a faulty fan.


Construction on the project began in the 1960s but was abandoned due to financial restraints.
Stephen Yang

The new station will feature four new LIRR platforms.
Stephen Yang

The most recent delay is just a minor blip in the project’s long-winding history of setbacks and rising costs.

The historically-late terminal was first proposed over 50 years ago.

Workers began building a tunnel under the East River to serve the station in the 1960s, but by the next decade, the city abandoned its plans as it stared down increasing financial issues.

The MTA picked the plans back up in the 1990s, setting an estimated completion date of 2009 and a price tag of $4.3 billion — less than half of the current cost.


The project was picked back up in the 1990s when officials set an estimated completion date to 2009.
Daniel Shapiro

The project’s final price tag of $11.6 billion is more than double its initial cost estimate.
Daniel Shapiro

The MTA estimates that the new train lines — once in effect — will increase overall LIRR service by 41%. Before the pandemic, officials estimated the new stop would serve 150,000 daily riders.

The new terminal will include four new LIRR platforms as well as a concourse with 25 retail shops and a floor-to-ceiling mosaic by the famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

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Gunman threatens MTA bus driver who demanded he pay

A Queens fare-beater pulled a gun and hissed, “I should kill you” to an MTA bus driver — who dared to ask the scofflaw to pay, cops said Sunday.

The twisted transit rider, who was wearing a brightly colored hoodie, boarded a Q17 MTA bus at Horace Harding Expressway and Kissena Boulevard around 9:30 p.m.. on Dec. 23 without paying the fare, cops said.

A fare-beater on a Queens bus pulled a gun on the driver, who had only asked the man to pay.
Crime Stoppers

The 59-year-old bus driver asked the scofflaw to come over to him, at which point the man began arguing, prompting the operator to ask him to leave the vehicle.

As the fare-beater exited the bus, he snarled, “I should kill you” while pointing a firearm at the driver, cops said. 

The gunman was caught on surveillance camera on the Q17 bus.
Crime Stoppers

“The individual then walked in front of the bus and pointed the firearm at the bus operator again before fleeing to parts unknown,” police said in a news release containing photos of the suspect dressed in a colorful hoodie with letters on it. 

There were no injuries, cops said.

The gunman is described as approximately 5’7″ tall with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a black face mask, black bubble jacket with a light, multicolored hood, black pants and black sneakers.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or on Twitter @NYPDTips.

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