Transportation News: Congestion Pricing, New Trains Out of Service and More

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC trick-or-treat. Really thanks to Michael Hill and company for the great job during the pre-10 o'clock hours of the membership drive on this Halloween. Have you got your candy buckets next to the door ready to go for this afternoon and this evening? We've got our last-day membership drive programming for you, including our last-day Brian Lehrer Show, low stakes pop quiz at 11 o'clock.

Today we have a special guest for you in that segment. NPR's puzzle master Will Shortz will be here with a special puzzle. Some of you can call in and play and see if you win a Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat.. Will Shortz and a special WNYC-centric puzzle that he wrote coming up at 11 o'clock. We will also talk today about a very interesting day in court yesterday in Denver, Colorado.

Have you heard about this lawsuit that aims to keep Donald Trump off the presidential ballot next year because he violated the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment? We've got the Colorado Secretary of State coming up later this hour to talk about that. Yes, trick-or-treat later on, we'll invite you to call in and say what you or your kids are going as this Halloween.

We begin with our transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen, who's been reporting in recent days on a few interesting things, the introduction of OMNY vending machines at select subway stations, which Stephen says is bringing the MetroCard one step closer to extinction. Is anybody feeling nostalgic about MetroCards? Also, the latest turns in one of New York City's biggest climate and mass transit protection measures that you either love or you hate, congestion pricing to drive into Manhattan below 60th Street.

We've got some news on that, and the MTA's gleaming new subway cars. Have you seen them, have you ridden in them, that have already been taken out of service for faulty gearboxes and flat wheels? Oops. Here is Stephen Nessen, WNYC and Gothamist Transit Reporter, and I always love to say how he goes on Twitter, which is your friendly neighborhood transit reporter, and he is. Hey, Stephen, always good to have you on the show.

Stephen Nessen: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Remind us of these gleaming new subway cars. Were they running on some lines and what happened?

Stephen Nessen: There's not that many out there in the system. Of all the MTA cars, hundreds and hundreds of subway trains running every day on all the lines on the A-line, only on the A-line. I guess, locally on the C and the E, you might see them passing, but they're the newest trains. They're called R211s. That's the model. They've got this nice angular front. They look very modern and sleek. Bright blue on the front. You can tell by the digital lettering that this is not like any of the other trains. When you step into it, the doors are just slightly wider than the typical train doors you're used to. The floors have what I describe as those black and white composition books. It's like that design, but it's blue and white instead.

The handlebars are yellow, but that's on the outside. The inside is what really makes them special. They're equipped with modern signal equipment. There's cameras inside, all the electronic bells and whistles that come with a modern train car. The problem is they're just maybe slightly too new because-- The news that you referred to is the MTA basically was running seven of these trains.

It took six of them out of service the other week, actually two weeks ago at this point, because like you said, it's a faulty gearbox was to blame. Basically, the thing that makes the wheels turn wasn't turning, so it's dragging the wheels. The wheels are almost locked up. What was described to me, I didn't know this, but if you drag a train wheel, those wheels, even though they're metal and they're loud and they seem really heavy, you'll actually make a flat spot on them while you're dragging it.

Brian Lehrer: That was the first thing I thought of when I saw your headline. Subway cars can have flat tires?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. Apparently, a train expert, someone who works at the MTA was describing it to me as the actual train rails themselves are quite hard, and the wheels are softer than the actual rail itself, so when you drag it, one of them is going to win, and the rail wins every time. The MTA pulled six out of the seven trains. They did not say when they're going to be put back in service.

They expected it's going to be weeks and not months. On the one hand, you can look at it as like, "Wow, it's pretty embarrassing. You spent over a million dollars on these train cars. You were testing them for a year. They didn't even last four months and you had to pull them out of service." Is one way to look at it. I think from an insider, from a train expert perspective, it's pretty normal. These are brand-new train cars. They hadn't been put into regular service on the wear and tear of daily life in New York City on the MTA rails. They found a mistake, they're going to correct it. It's still under warranty as the MTA says, so no taxpayer dollars will be spent on this snafu. They'll fix it and they'll prevent it going forward.

Brian Lehrer: Still under warranty. Who made these train cars and do they offer free returns?

Stephen Nessen: I don't know if they offer free returns, but Kawasaki is the company which is not, obviously, an American company, but they manufacture them. All the steel and whatnot comes from an American plant, and that's actually a requirement. It sort of hamstrings the MTA in future train orders because there's The Buy American Act, which I don't know if you've gotten into on your show, but requires any agency or organization that gets federal funding to buy from a company that is majority American manufactured, American steel, et cetera. There's only two train car companies in America that still make train cars. It's Kawasaki, and what used to be Bombardier is now this company called Alstom.

Brian Lehrer: I used to say Bombardier. Now I know how you actually say that name. Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for Stephen Nessen on a couple of things. Anything about the OMNY system for getting onto mass transit, we're going to talk about that now. Your OMNY questions welcome here. I don't know if anybody has gleaming new subway car with flat tires questions, but you can call with those.

Also, is anyone nostalgic for the MetroCard, or do you keep an old subway token around for posterity? 212-433-WNYC, and the congestion pricing debate now happening regarding taxis and trucks in particular. Have an opinion or question on that? 212-433-WNYC for your friendly neighborhood transit reporter, Stephen Nessen. 212-433-9692. Call or text. All right. Yes. Next gleaming new thing, OMNY vending machines. Now, I use the OMNY readers at the turnstiles with my credit card. Super convenient. I'm guessing that's the most common way the turnstile OMNY readers are used, but you tell me, and what do the vending machines actually add?

Stephen Nessen: Sure. The OMNY readers, which we've all seen now, they've been installed for a while now. The MTA says about half of subway users riders use them. 50%, they think that's actually pretty much where they're going to be at for now until they phase out the MetroCard, which by the way, for everyone's, like for the nostalgist, for Julianne [unintelligible 00:07:54] who will never let go of it, you've actually got a reprieve of about 18 months at least.

The MTA was hoping to phase it out in 2024, just around the corner, believe it or not, but they had all kinds of snafus with the OMNY rollout. They're actually like-- they had to blow up their whole plan for rolling them out because of management issues. It's all delayed. The good news is the OMNY readers are in subway stations and they are usable. I use them. If you have a contactless credit card, you can use them.

I will say, because we're in this transition period where a lot of people do still use MetroCards. Tourists still use them, the OMNY vending machines, like you said, are just rolled out yesterday. One of the funniest things I see these days is people tapping their MetroCard on an OMNY reader. Even my daughter who just got her first student MetroCard said, "Do I just tap this thing?" No, you still have to swipe it, sweetheart.

Brian Lehrer: Who's still using MetroCards and for what reasons? Is it convenience or a habit or also financial reasons?

Stephen Nessen: Sure. I don't have the survey in front of me, but I think it's a lot of all those things. The 30-day unlimited card, which some people still purchase, which is just how they like to do things. It's convenient. Maybe their company buys it for them. The only way to get a 30-day unlimited is to get an actual physical MetroCard. Some older folks who get the reduced fare cards, they like their MetroCard, they're going to keep using that student cards like I mentioned, but pretty much all other users can transition to OMNY if they want to, and the MTA does have a website.

Brian Lehrer: Are the available discounts on OMNY any better or worse?

Stephen Nessen: The MTA has this system right now where if you tap in-- Let's say you start your week on a Monday, you tap 12 times, the rest of your week till the following Monday will be free after 12 rides. If you do the math, my editor's like, "Well, what's the best way?" It's like, actually, OMNY is the best way. If you bought an unlimited MetroCard, it would actually be, I don't know, something like $2 more expensive than if you just tapped more than 12 times each week and got the unlimited for the rest of that week.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a text that has come in on the gleaming new subway cars that don't work, and those metal wheels that flatten out. Listener writes, "I was always curious as to why the subway does not have rubber wheels as they do on other systems across the world. They're much quieter."

Stephen Nessen: They are quieter. Actually, one of the story ideas kicking around in my head is why are the trains so loud? I think that's part of it. I don't know why they never transitioned to rubber wheels other than, I think-- I'm going to guess, I don't have a great answer. I do know that the MTA swaps out the bottom of the train cars, and you can put in tops on top of them for like the A division and the B division, the numbered lines, the letter lines. I think they like that flexibility. That's just the way trains have been since-- We still have trains running from the '70s on our tracks, the '80s. I think they need to keep those trains in service and they just never got rubber wheels. I'm sure at some point somebody looked at the feasibility of it, but I don't know when that was.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an OMNY card question from Edie in Manhattan. You're on WNYC with transportation reporter Stephen Nessen. Hi, Edie.

Edie: Hi, Brian. I love your show. I just wanted to know how someone with a senior discount MetroCard would then be able to get their discount on the new OMNY card.

Stephen Nessen: Well, let me tell you, I was just looking into this, I was just speaking with the MTA spokesperson about this because this is really one of the most common questions I get, Brian. While I'm on your show and even after the show, people email me and message me about this. What I'm told is, if you have your reduced fare MetroCard, you can go to the OMNY website.

They have a whole reduced fair section, and they will walk you through the steps to putting it on your smartphone. Because really, the smartphone, like the Apple wallet or whatever type of smartphone you have, the wallet feature, you can add that to that. You can get your senior discount with an OMNY account on your smartphone. They'll walk you through the steps on the website. Just search MTA OMNY Reduced-Fare and it'll take you right there. I did get a question from someone last night. She asked, "But I just want a physical card. I don't want to put it on a smartphone." The MTA said they do not have a reduced fare physical OMNY Card ready just yet. Sometime next year is what I was just told.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "Super sad face for losing the MetroCard. It was so easy to just slip in a pocket, swipe, and then go on your way. Now I have to pull out my phone, wait for it to activate, and for security, I have a passcode, so I need to input the passcode before I can even start going through the turnstile." There's one unhappy person with the transition. Go ahead, Stephen.

Stephen Nessen: Just like I had the same thing and I was so annoyed for a month or two before I realized there's a setting in the phone you can change that won't make you do that. It's like you make--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you don't have to go through your passcode?

Stephen Nessen: Yes. It'll let you bypass that. It'll make whatever card you use for tapping in your "preferred" or some language like that in your phone. Now, when I go in, I just tap it, it clicks, I go in. It's even faster than the MetroCard, but you do have to go through a few settings in your phone to set that up.

Brian Lehrer: A little pushback from a listener via text message on the idea of rubber wheels. A person writes, "Rubber wheels are much less efficient. The deformation of the rubber wastes energy as heat." Interesting. I don't know if that's-

Stephen Nessen: That would make sense

Brian Lehrer: -exactly why they did it. That would be very intentional. We don't know if they have that much intention and having made that choice. Let's see. Here's also a MetroCard retirement conspiracy theory. Where did it go? Well, I'm going to have to summarize it because we're getting so many texts at the same time. Listener wrote basically, "Recently, I always have to swipe my MetroCard multiple times for it to work. Are they purposely making them less usable because they want to phase them out."

Stephen Nessen: That's some deep MetroCard conspiracy theory.

Brian Lehrer: It is.

Stephen Nessen: I've seen them cleaning the MetroCard readers recently. The cleaning, it does still happen.

Brian Lehrer: That's the deep MTA state conspiracy theory. All right. Onto congestion pricing. People love it or hate it or love it as long as they're exempt. It's the deliberations on exemptions that your recent article is about, this time about taxis and trucks in particular.

Stephen Nessen: Yes. I was just trying to poke around a little bit and see what is going on, what are the holdups. The board, it's called the Traffic Mobility Review Board, it's a group of six people, five of them I believe are appointed by the governor, one appointed by the mayor. They're supposed to come up with the tolling scheme, basically. The MTA, a few months ago, several months ago, came up with seven different scenarios that they think are reasonable would get them to their goal.

Their goal is actually just to raise $1 billion a year, also to reduce congestion in the city. This group is supposed to look at all the options, look at all the hundreds of people that have asked for exemptions and come up with a plan that they present to the MTA board. That group, what I mentioned, the Traffic Mobility Review Board has met three times publicly. I was just poking around a little bit to see what's going on behind the scenes here? What are you guys still debating? What are the issues?

It sounded like the issues of trucks and taxis are still very much up for debate, how much to charge them, what to do about it. During the busiest time of the day, which is most of the day in Midtown, taxis make up about half the traffic. We all know, we've spoke about the Plight Of The Yellow Taxi and the rise of Uber and Lyft and all the ride-hailing apps and whatnot. It's a conundrum, like how to charge them for the space they use, but also not completely destroy the taxi industry, the yellow taxi industry, I should say.

It's an ongoing debate basically. As you know, the taxis are already charged a congestion pricing fee. It's like $250 for a yellow cab, $275 for Uber or Lyft. They're going to get another charge on top of that and that's what they're debating. The thing about increasing the rate for yellow cabs by a $150 maybe, and the for-hire vehicles up to $250 or $275, it's still a debate.

Brian Lehrer: Taxis and trucks are very different in their place in society. I wonder how that's playing into the deliberations of the MTA.

Stephen Nessen: Sure. This board also, they have put out a recommendation, or I should say, they put out four new recommendations that they're considering for what to charge. In all of them, it includes charging small trucks twice as much as whatever regular vehicles would pay, and large trucks three times as much. Charging them for the space they take up. I started poking around at that, trying to figure out, well, what would that mean? What are the impacts of that?

Nobody wants to have toll-shopping, people searching for the cheapest rate by choosing a certain tunnel and crossing on one of the East River bridges. Nobody wants overflow traffic. Even the MTA's own environmental assessment found there's likely going to be some sort of new traffic patterns that evolve out of congestion pricing. The Cross Bronx Expressway is usually highlighted as one of the biggest problems because that's an area, it's a neighbor that already has a lot of traffic, notoriously high asthma rates. The federal government actually requiring the MTA to invest over $130 million to mitigate any environmental effects from congestion pricing. That's before it even goes into effect.

Brian Lehrer: You know what, we have three people calling in now to say how to get your senior discounts onto the OMNY system. Eny Minnie Miny Neil in Brooklyn gets the honor of the three callers. Neil, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Neil: Hello, Brian. Usually, I call on political issues, but in this particular case, there actually is a way to get the senior assistant discount. You have to go to an MTA service center. It used to be that the only one was in Lower Manhattan, I think on Stone Street in the Financial District. They're now half a dozen other centers where you tap your preferred credit card on a device at the service center. That makes the-- you do the OMNY Card with that discount, the senior citizen or other discount. You just cannot do it through a computer. You have to go to a physical place. Now there are six or seven of them instead of just one.

Brian Lehrer: Neil, thank you very much. Stephen, Anything to add to that and then we're out of time?

Stephen Nessen: I'm pretty sure there is some folks on the OMNY website- that can help me. You can go to a service center, but I think there's a digital assistant on the OMNY website that should be able to help you as well.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, our text message box is full of steel wheel advocates versus rubber wheel advocates. Steel wheels have less friction considering the weight of a subway car. Thus, steel can be more efficient. Someone else, the wheels on the so-called rubber-- the rubber wheel-- sorry, subway cars, I'm summarizing here because this already disappeared from my screen. They're still steel, they're just covered in rubber, so there you go. There's a steel rubber subway car wheels debate breaking out now that we know that this new generation of A-train cars already has a flat tire problem. Stephen Nessen, our transportation reporter, he's on all of it. See his article list on Gothamist. Then, of course, you'll hear him on the radio. Stephen, always good to have you on the show.

Stephen Nessen: Thank you, Brian.

 

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