Forget about getting annoyed at crazy weekend subway and bus schedules—apparently you're actually quite satisfied with subway and bus service! Straphangers across the city told the M.T.A. their rides were not as bad as one might think, according to the agency's 2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey, which was released today. Read More
The first thing on my platform is that the next M.T.A. chief need not be a train buff. He or she—or me specifically, since I’m hereby throwing my name out there—has to appreciate the economic essentiality of the authority, which moves the equivalent of New Jersey’s population (8.5 million, give or take) every weekday. But this is not a Lionel set; this is dollars and nonsense.
The next chief should know more about transit financing, particularly the warren navigated in simply keeping the four-pronged monster afloat. As it stands now, it’s a ready-made punch line, with the nation’s largest transit system held hostage to a dysfunctional Albany. Read More
Jay Walder has announced that he is stepping down as head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in October. (more...)
Public transportation cuts are hindering home sales in the city, the Wall Street Journal writes today.
That finding should prove uncontroversial with anyone who's bought, sold or rented an apartment in the city's outer reaches. But the Journal story is pretty thin on data to back up what some frustrated residents and real estate brokers Read More
"[The apartment building] is superbly situated one block from Central Park, B/C/1/2/3 trains and cross-town bus."
This is, appropriately, the first line of the Shares of New York listing for the three-bedroom, Upper West Side condo recently purchased by M.T.A. chairman and CEO Jay Walder and wife, Susan Walder-Cummings, for $1.599 million from an unidentitfied buyer shielded by an Read More
The perennial attempt to hike subway and bus fares is one of the more ritualistic political dances in New York. Any leader of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority who ever tries logic (fares, adjusted for inflation, are virtually the same as in the mid-1990s) is inevitably met with a blast of criticism. Politicians decry the move. Read More
The M.T.A. on Monday made public its new $1 billion deal with Stephen Ross' Related Companies to develop the West Side rail yards, and in it are some details about just when the agency can start to expect taking in rent for selling off the air over its giant 26-acre LIRR yard by the Read More
Lest onlookers be consumed with the M.T.A.'s current fiscal woes—it has another $319 million gap to fill even after approving a big round of major service cuts and more belt tightening, according to the state comptroller—the transit agency on Friday reminded riders that it is headed for a long-term financial reckoning as well.
Chairman Jay Walder put Read More
On the heels of the $93 million in service cuts the M.T.A.'s board approved Wednesday—which come as the agency is facing what it says is a nearly $800 million budget gap for the year—here's a look at one of the continuous problems it faces on the revenue side, thanks to the recession.
For years, real estate transfer taxes in Read More
The M.T.A., never known for lightning-speed feats of renovation, recently announced a scaled-back strategy that involves tempering the verb "renovate" with the idea of "station renewal," a process that may include repairing lights, signs and other individual subway components. Nevertheless, when it comes to office space, the M.T.A.'s new digs at SL Green's 333 Read More
With revenues well below expectations and frustrations high in the suburbs, the year-old "mobility tax" might be up for an overhaul. Governor Paterson on Monday announced a plan for some major changes to the payroll tax, changes he said would fetch the originally intended revenues—$1.54 billion a year—and shift the burden away from the Read More
Giant developer Related Companies will have another two months before it must sign a contract with the M.T.A. to develop the West Side rail yards, Manhattan's largest remaining development site, pushing back a deadline that was set to expire at the end of this month.
Related and the M.T.A. recently reached a revised agreement Read More
The Related Companies, the real estate giant that built the Time Warner Center, is nearing an agreement to commit to building over the West Side rail yards, an oft-delayed project that could be Manhattan's single biggest development.
The firm envisions $15 billion of new office, hotel and apartment towers on a 26-acre site near Read More
The Related Companies, the real estate giant that built the Time Warner Center, is nearing an agreement to commit to building over the West Side rail yards, an oft-delayed project that could be Manhattan's single biggest development.
The firm envisions $15 billion of new office, hotel and apartment towers on a 26-acre site Read More
