Subway Breakdowns

Title: Subway Breakdowns.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we turn to transit news in New York City. We're nearly one month into congestion pricing, the proceeds of which will go to finance mass transit upgrades. Mass transit is in dire need of upgrades. The MTA wants $65 billion to repair and upgrade the MTA's core infrastructure over the next five years. And our WNYC and Gothamist colleagues Stephen Nessen and Clayton Guse are out with a new series that takes a close look at New York City's crumbling subway system, as they characterize it. The series is called State of Collapse.

Stephen Nessen joins us now to break down this reporting and talk about some other recent transit news as well. Hey, Stephen, always great to have you. Welcome back to the show.

Stephen Nessen: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: State of Collapse is a stark title for the series you're reporting, and I wonder why you labeled it that. I mean, New Yorkers may experience delays and inconveniences on the trains more than we would like, but State of Collapse is probably not people's daily experiences, I think it's fair to say. Introduce us to this series.

Stephen Nessen: Part of the thinking behind it is it's the little delays that add up across the system every single day. We took a look at some of the data before we get so hyperbolic, like you were saying, like it sounds crazy, like I got to work today, my train didn't derail. We looked at some of the data. Let's just take a look at, for example, train delays caused by faulty infrastructure and equipment, which is a lot of what the MTA is asking for when they talk about that capital plan you mentioned.

Last year, it went up more than 46% compared to 2021. That's a big problem. Major incidents, which the MTA defines as problems that delay 50 or more trains, like that big incident in December when the F-train substation exploded. They're at their highest levels now since 2018. When take a look at the big picture, there is a steady increase in problems as well as other equipment problems with trains.

For example, trains used to go, say, across the 665 miles of subway tracks, there would be a problem every 3 minutes and 12 seconds. Three years ago it was 5 minutes and 7 seconds. All those things, we see it's gradually getting worse and worse. It's not collapsing overnight, but it's a steady crumble. I know you're going to ask about some of the crazy stuff I saw behind the scenes as well.

Brian Lehrer: Totally, totally. We'll get into what you saw at Grand Central, what you saw at DeKalb. I want to note that you cited 2018 as a comparison year. Was that the year of the so-called Summer from Hell? Is that what they called it? When there seemed to be a lot of major delays all concentrated together in a short period of time.

Stephen Nessen: Right. I believe 2017 was the Summer of Hell, but it carried over. Things didn't get fixed overnight and they're still not fixed.

Brian Lehrer: Right. They did some improvements shortly after that and now they're dealing with the longer-term picture. Yes.

Stephen Nessen: Yes, exactly.

Brian Lehrer: All right, so let's get into some of these infrastructure pieces that you've reported on for the series. There's the Grand Central train shed, the entry point for roughly 200,000 daily riders in and out of Manhattan. You're right, when the artery was built in 1913, it was designed to hold horse drawn furniture trucks, not modern trucks that weigh more than 30 tons. What did you find there? Introduce people to this because most of our listeners have never heard of the Grand Central train shed.

Stephen Nessen: Sure. Obviously, everyone knows if you're taking the Metro-North train, all Metro-North service funnels into Grand Central Terminal, for now anyways, until Penn Station opens up for them. It's called a train shed. It's basically what holds up Park Avenue and underneath it are the tracks. If there is a problem, there's basically no Metro-North service in or out of the city. This is actually a problem the MTA has already started working on because it is such a big problem.

They actually have a partnership, I believe, with JP Morgan Chase to get some of this work started because they're building a new office there, and so they're getting ahead of it even without this capital plan funding, they have to do some repairs. Basically, what we saw was these beams that hold it up are nearly 100 years old. According to the MTA, 95% of the support beams are in poor or marginal condition. It's like you could see they're not going to let it-- What they tell us is they're not going to let it collapse.

Nobody's in danger at the moment, but what they do is these interim repairs, like they'll fix the most rusted beam that's in trouble, but then five years later, it's rusting again. What they say the reason for that is like the waterproofing on this shed, like the ceiling basically is so corroded. Whenever we have all this salt out on the roads now and then when it rains, it's all going to go down and it corrodes it. If they don't actually properly waterproof it, the beams are just going to keep getting rusty, the cycle is going to continue.

They describe it as a cancer, this rust. They need to replace it and they want $1.7 billion to do a thorough job. For now, they just do these patches that keep them going. Obviously, it's very tedious to do that.

Brian Lehrer: This is where some of the money from congestion pricing would go, is part of the point here, right?

Stephen Nessen: Well, I'm sorry to say, not exactly, Brian.

[laughter]

The congestion pricing money is for the last capital plan. There is now a new five-year capital plan that starts this year, which is hotly contested and being debated right now in Albany. The congestion pricing money was for that last plan when you were talking about the Summer of Hell. Remember, our dear beloved departed transit Chief Andy Byford put together this fabulous plan to get the system going again, and that relied on money from congestion pricing. They're still trying to finish that plan while they move ahead to the next plan.

Brian Lehrer: Did you mean to suggest, by the way, in your previous answer, that Metro-North trains, Metro-North riders will soon have the option, or at some point, have the option of taking trains that go to Penn Station in addition to Grand Central? We know, we saw that with the Long Island Railroad, which used to only go to Penn Station. Now it also goes to Grand Central. Are they routing Metro-North to Penn Station 2, eventually?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. There's a project, it's called Penn Station Access. Let's see, I don't know the latest completion date, but in the next couple years, I believe, soon enough they will start to route some trains to Penn Station to split them up, just the way some Long Island Railroad trains now go to Grand Central Madison, as well as Penn Station.

Brian Lehrer: Well, people who live in Points North who work on the west side are going to be very happy to hear that or very happy when that comes in.

Stephen Nessen: 2027, excuse me, is the latest.

Brian Lehrer: 2027, o2027, that soon. You also visited the Signal room at DeKalb, and you write regular commuters in Brooklyn are likely familiar with the area. It's where Trains frequently pause for seconds or minutes near the DeKalb Avenue station so others can pass. That delegate dance is managed by MTA staff behind a locked door "operating equipment invented when FDR was in the White House," from your story. For listeners who aren't familiar, can you tell us about this signal room and how it operates?

Stephen Nessen: Absolutely. At DeKalb, that's called a signal tower. Behind an unmarked door that just says, "Employees only," you go down a long hallway, and then you open the door, and it's really like stepping into another era. There's this giant black board that's up there on the-- up in the air there, up on the wall, and it's got these glowing lights. Really, this looks like something out of a movie. When a train moves, you can follow it. This is how for the B, D, N, Q and R trains, as well as the Franklin Avenue shuttle, this is how the MTA is keeping track of that and orchestrating the movements.

When there's a problem, like there's a sick passenger, then the workers in this room have to decide, "Okay, well, that train stuck there, so we're going to reroute this train over here." They're just pushing these buttons to make it happen, which is just incredible. They are in communication with radio, but it's literally pushing a button. When they push the button, it sends an electrical signal to a room just behind them. In that room is really where it's just incredible. It's all this electromagnetic technology, this huge room.

I would describe it as-- it looks like a large basement with all this old equipment. Whenever they push a button, it sends an electrical signal to that room, and that room sends a message all the way to the train track. This is essentially analog technology. It's electronic, but it's not computers. Some of these things are so old that I think one of the biggest takeaways for me about this project is that the companies that made this equipment originally, they're not in business anymore.

It's not like when a piece burns out, which they do, because it's like a coil, like electrical moving coil. When it burns out, they can't just go to the manufacturer and say, "All right, we need 20 more coils." They either need to-- This is what they do. It's really incredible. They go to eBay to find old parts.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] The MTA is going to eBay to find parts for subway trains.

Stephen Nessen: I was like, "Well, who's the eBay guy? What are his search alerts?" I guess they hire a contractor who's skilled at scouring eBay for these parts, of course. Or they'll make it themselves. They have all these great machine shops with these brilliant workers who are so skilled at manufacturing these parts. They'll just do it. That was a couple of the big takeaways. Can I tell you, really, the most shocking thing for me.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Stephen Nessen: Is when there's a problem, say one of those electrical things, something goes wrong, something short circuits or whatever it is. There are these guys who are very skilled, these signal maintenance guys, and they will go into this room with all this equipment that I mentioned. In the back of the room, there's this rack of hanging papers. It looks like when you used to go to the library to read a newspaper, and they would keep it on the metal rack so no one stole it. It's like those things.

They would go there and they will find the exact signal relay that's having a problem, and they'll look it up on the paper to see how it's configured to try to troubleshoot it. I asked the person in charge of that, does that mean when I'm on a train and they say, "Sorry, we're delayed because of signal problems," there's a chance that it's just one of you guys coming back here to check the paper to see what's wrong with this equipment back here. He said, "Yes, that's right. "

Brian Lehrer: Wow. This, contrary to what I was indicating in my first question to you in this conversation, is an example where riders are suffering every day to some degree because of this state of disrepair. By the way, are we talking about-- There are a few DeKalb Avenue stations. Are we talking about the one where the Q and the R, and the B all go, or a different one?

Stephen Nessen: Yes, that's right, sorry, the B, D, N, Q & R. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen, who, with his colleague Clayton Guse, has a new series on Gothamist and on the station called State of Disrepair about the subway system. I wonder if we have any MTA employees tuning in. Stephen is revealing all this behind-the-scenes stuff about the infrastructure and why congestion pricing money is needed, and all of that.

I wonder if any MTA workers are listening who can help us report this story. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Help put some of your first-person experiences on these MTA, especially subway system infrastructure issues that Stephen is pointing up. 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692. You can also call about other subway news. We will touch on the new police deployment on the subways after 9:00 p.m. or how congestion pricing is affecting the system. Maybe from your experience, especially as an MTA worker or riders can call in; 212-433-WNYC. 433-9692.

As we continue to go down some of the things that Steven's reporting on in State of Disrepair, a major issue that you report on is electrical equipment. In some cases, it's so old that it frequently explodes. You write about a substation in Harlem in particular. You want to tell us about that?

Stephen Nessen: Sure. This was another really eye-opening look at how the system operates. I should say frequently explodes-- Well, let me get to that in a second. There are these substations and they're about every half mile along the subway system, and they provide power to the third rail which powers the train so they can keep going. That's how they get their electricity and the power. I mean some folks are very familiar, some folks don't know anything about it. Basically, Con Edison provides the power and it goes to the substations that the MTA owns.

In your house and stuff, there's also substations that Con Ed owns that sense power. Because the MTA consumes so much power, it has its own substations that are underground and provide power to the third rail. The MTA has about 224 of them, and in their state of good repair 20-year needs assessment, they found about 77 of them are in so called poor or marginal condition. That's basically the condition which they need to be replaced and upgraded.

I visited one of these 77 and it's in Harlem. It's right where the 2 train, it's the last substation that provides power to the 2 train before it goes into the Bronx from Harlem. Again, this is like a hundred-year-old room. It's about 40ft underground. We had to go down a couple sets of ladders to get there. I mean, even remarkably just getting there, you need a special key to get in there. The people that were with us didn't even have the key. They were like, "Wait, do you have the key?" "No, I thought he had the key." "Who's got the key?" It was almost farcical that they even had to like go through this in front of a reporter who's there to report on the condition.

I mean, that was already my first indication that's like, "Wow, this is how you guys are going to do things." We go down and there's you hear the humming of electricity, there's all these massive almost the size of small shipping container pieces of electrical equipment. They all do different things. I'll just tell you two things that were really eye opening for me. First of all, again, people might not know exactly how all the power systems works, but in your home, we get power, AC, alternating current. Radio lab fans will be familiar with this. The trains run on DC, direct current.

The MTA has to convert the power from AC to DC, but the equipment that it uses to do that is so old that sometimes it doesn't even convert it cleanly enough. There's still a little bit of AC getting into the DC line. I'm sure an electrician can explain it more sophisticated than that, but that's the layman's understanding. What that means is especially with the MTA's newer train cars, they'll just shut down if the power is not clean. That's a problem, like you said, that affects riders. I said, does this happen frequently? Yes, it's pretty common.

The electric system doesn't really provide the proper power for a lot of the new train cars. That was one of the most eye-opening issues. Another thing is they need to cool some of the power or they need to cool these pipes. Modern substations cool them with fans, which is standard in the industry, I understand. Some of this old equipment, which is a lot of it's from 1969, uses oil and water to cool the electricity. The folks I was speaking with said they can fix a corroded pipe that they can see, but some of the pipes that are corroding are actually likely inside these machines, which they can't just pop open whenever they want to.

That's sort of like a, I wouldn't say a ticking time bomb, but it's a problem that they know is on the horizon. Can I get to your exploding circuit breaker issue here?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Stephen Nessen: All this stuff that's happening I described is in one room. The power goes to what looks like a copper beam across the ceiling. I was like, "What is that?" They're like, "Oh, that's considered a live wire of electricity just exposed." There's water finding your basement, just much bigger. That's the final stop to providing power to the trains. To get to the exploding part, these things are very old, and they're-- At the very top is these white partitions, I guess I'll describe them as. I was told that those are made out of asbestos.

That's because if somebody, for example, throws a shopping cart on the train tracks, it sends a surge of electricity back to the circuit breaker, and essentially, the piece there explodes to prevent from-- It overloads and it explodes. That's how it's designed. It doesn't cause a major fire. I was like, "Well, I'm standing right here. What if it explodes right now?" He's like, "Well, you'll be okay. It'll shoot molten copper against the wall. Not at us, but against the wall. Then workers have to come in and replace that circuit breaker, pieces of it and clean it up. They also have to get suited up in hazmat suits, because there is asbestos there."

He said it doesn't happen all the time, but frequently enough, people, vandals are throwing shopping carts on the tracks. I think the MTA really didn't want me to get too into that because they don't want to encourage people. I would assume most of your listeners are not encouraged by this sort of talk. This is the reality of what workers deal with. It's also part of the system that's been designed, and it's designed that way, and it's been that way, like we said, for half a century or more.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Some of this sounds like they should be scenes in horror movies. On the MTA not wanting you to say every little piece of that, we have a text that came in from a listener who apparently, I guess, is an MTA worker that says, "I am homesick. I could help you, but I would be fired." Then the listener adds, " I do love Stephen," so you have that bouquet. Did you have access? I mean, given all the ways that you're lifting the veil on the operations of the subway system, the things we don't see when we're sitting in the cars, did you have trouble getting access to these things that you're describing?

Stephen Nessen: I think obviously, the MTA and the press, we do a delicate dance where it's like, on the one hand, they want to show us how things work so we can tell people what the problems are and how to fix them. On the other hand, they don't want us to freak everybody out with this information. To a certain extent, we put in a bunch of requests to visit a bunch of sites, and they approved a lot of them, most of them, but it was very delicate. There's minders that come with us, but once we're down there, some of the workers, some are more candid than others, I'll say. Some really get into it and explain how it is.

I think to a certain extent, they're so senior and the problem is so evident that there's nothing. It's just what it is. They're just describing the situation. On the one hand, the MTA does want the public to see what's going on behind the scenes and what the problems are. That's because, really, they want this, as you said at the top of the segment, the $65 billion to improve all of this. It's really hard to see all this stuff and for lawmakers to pretend that it's not an issue. I think anyone that sees that would agree that's an issue. On the other hand, we're not here to do the MTA's bidding either. If there's something that's really unpleasant, well, sorry, we saw it. We're going to report it. You can't really walk that back.

Brian Lehrer: Marin in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Am I saying your name right?

Marin: Yes. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Hi.

Marin: I just had a question for the reporter. After all of your reporting, if you have any idea what you chalk this up to, whether it's just a lack of funds or mismanagement over the years, not our dear departed Andy Byford, of course. Just what have we gotten to this place? And how we've gotten to this place and will the congestion pricing help?

Brian Lehrer: Is part of your question, how much of this is MTA mismanagement, and how much of it is just an aging system and nobody's really to blame?

Marin: Yes, and the relationship between the city and the state. Yes, what is the relationship between mismanagement and lack of funding?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Stephen.

Stephen Nessen: Yes, no, it's a great question. Really, that's the crux of the issue, like, how did we get here and what's to blame? I think there's a lot there's a lot that goes into that. I know you want to talk about the history of deferred maintenance of the MTA, but arguably, you can go back all the way to the 1970s, depending how far back you want to go. There was the financial crisis back then, so I think a lot of improvements that should have happened then got deferred to later.

Folks who have been around New York for a long time, remember, in the 1980s, Richard Ravitch is credited with saving the system. Part of the way he actually did that was he took a big assessment and looked at what needs to get fixed, how much it's going to cost, prioritizing it and working through that. I think you did that to a certain extent. It's not like you do it once and forget it. It's a continuous thing.

We'll fast forward to today, but folks will remember the Cuomo era that led to the Summer of Hell. A lot of the money for the maintenance went to the Second Avenue subway extension and other projects like that, which notoriously were mismanaged, as well as Eastside Access, that project that just opened a couple years ago major cost overrun. A lot of the money that should have gone into maybe day to day repairs, maintaining the electric facilities, the substations, the signals, everything. All that gets was like, "Well, we'll do that later. It's working well enough for now."

Now I feel like we're at a point where they've reached a juncture where it's like, if you really want things to get better, we need to really invest in it. This capital plan that they're talking about now doesn't really have any of the glamorous ribbon cutting stuff like a Second Avenue subway, although it does have a little bit of money for the next phase of Second Avenue. Now that we mention it, but the majority of it is so called state of good repair signals, power, fixing water leaks, things like that.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, a wise guy listener chimes in, "I guess the good news about these trains being stuck in the analog era is that they'll be safe from any AI takeover in the future." [laughs] We have three minutes left. Let's do a lightning round on other transit news. You do have a piece on President Trump's campaign promise to terminate congestion pricing during his first week in office. Here we are on the end of the first week, is at 12:01 this afternoon. Did he do it?

Stephen Nessen: He didn't do it. I guess there were plenty of other more pressing issues before him. Maybe it's not as easy as to just sign an executive order and kill congestion pricing. It's not clear how-- I haven't heard him mention it or have heard anyone mention it, but on, I believe his second day in office, Governor Phil Murphy sent a letter to President Trump reminding him that he said he was going to kill congestion pricing. Can we work together on that? So more to come, but we haven't heard anything yet.

Brian Lehrer: It's unclear to you, certainly unclear to me, whether he can kill it with an executive order.

Stephen Nessen: It's not clear that he can kill it with executive order yet. Nobody that I've spoken to has floated that how that would happen exactly. We haven't heard yet. Apparently as you'll-- maybe, I'm sure your callers will say, it appears to have quite an impact. A lot of people are very happy about the less traffic, less noise, getting around the city easier. There is an argument that if enough people like it, it will be politically unpalatable to kill it.

Brian Lehrer: That was actually related to my next lightning round question. We've done a few segments here and I feel like there's been a lot of reporting on the impact of congestion pricing on traffic, car traffic. How about the impact on the subway for you as a transit reporter? Anything to report in terms of more ridership, quality of ridership, if the trains are more crowded, anything like that?

Stephen Nessen: It's somewhat difficult to compare apples to apples this week to last week, the impact. There hasn't been a noticeable increase in subway ridership, at least not that the MTA has reported. I would say anecdotally, my commuting friends from New Jersey say the buses coming from New Jersey are pretty crowded and they move fast because there's less traffic. Folks like that, I think uptown across from the George Washington Bridge. I've also heard scattered reports that there are a lot more riders at that subway station than before. It appears to be a lot of new riders who haven't been in the system. We'll see how sustained that is. It's still only the second or third week.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing about the recent deployment of police on each subway train after 9:00 p.m. at night. I will say I was riding home yesterday during the daytime from somewhere and there was a cop in my car. I felt like that's really unusual in my long experience riding the trains, that there's a police officer actually in the car and that was the daytime. Any effects on reports of crime or perceptions of safety, or anything like that? I know this has only been going on for a short time.

Stephen Nessen: Sure. I mean, I guess the one thing I can tell you is that there's maybe 100 more officers out now doing this sort of overnight patrols. There's going to be a lot more by the end of the month. I think they're just ramping up to it. The crime picture is complicated. It's always complicated. For example, last year, there were 10 murders in the subway system. The year before that, there were five. The year before that, there were 10. There's these great fluctuations; 10 is obviously bad, but there were also these really high-profile crimes already this year.

That woman that was lit on fire, a man on New Year's Eve who was shoved onto the tracks but didn't die. That has a perception. The actual crime numbers themselves, overall put murders aside, overall, it is going down. Then there's like a high-profile incident, so suddenly it's in the public awareness. That's always the issue. The police, the NYPD, the governor, and the mayor are always balancing and grappling with

Brian Lehrer: Your Friendly Neighborhood Transportation Reporter, as he goes on social media. Our transit reporter, Stephen Nessen. His current series on Gothamist with his colleague Clayton Guse is State of Disrepair. Stephen, thanks as always.

Stephen Nessen: Thank you, Brian.

 

 

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