Emma G. Fitzsimmons

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, nevertheless, wants more police.

He is seeking to expand the force by 20%, hiring 500 more officers, which Cuomo says is needed to combat fare evasion and to address issues like homelessness.

The plan would cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority more than $50 million a year even as it faces a looming financial crisis and struggles to provide reliable service.

“Historically, the NYPD did the policing in the transit system, but there has been a dramatic increase in crime in the subway system,” Cuomo, who controls the subway, told reporters recently. “Felonies are up, assaults are up, robberies are up, and I’ve been talking about this for years.”

While some individual categories of crime are up this year, the overall number of major felonies on the subway is actually down, according to New York Police Department statistics.

The city’s outgoing police commissioner, James O’Neill, challenged Cuomo, calling his comments a “total mischaracterization,” and arguing that the subway was safe.

“Overall, crime is down,” said O’Neill, who announced on Monday that he was resigning.

The plan to hire new officers — primarily for the subway but also potentially for buses — has already come under fire from transit advocates for being too expensive as the agency is considering subway and bus service cuts and major layoffs.

Transit groups have urged Cuomo to cancel the plans for new officers, who would work for the transit agency rather than the city’s police department, as the current force does. The governor, they say, should instead focus resources on modernizing the subway, which still relies on signal equipment that was introduced before World War II.

The proposal has become even more unpopular after two viral videos raised concerns about overly aggressive policing on the subway.

One video showed an officer punching two young men, leading to the officer being transferred to desk duty. A second video showed a swarm of officers clambering on to a train to arrest a man, frightening riders, even though the man did not appear to resist. The police said they were responding to reports that the man had a gun, though they did not find one on him.

Hundreds of protesters flooded a subway station on Friday and jumped the turnstiles to protest what they said was police brutality. Leaders on the left like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon have criticized the crackdown on fare evasion as targeting poor people.

“There is no excuse for the excessive use of force and hyperaggressive policing we saw in these two incidents,” Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, said at a news conference at City Hall.

Transit officials have warned that they are facing a growing budget deficit. While officials at the authority say they are not planning to cut subway or bus service, the prospect of such cuts was enough to prompt Andy Byford, the subway’s leader, to threaten to resign last month.

Byford ultimately decided to stay after raising concerns to his bosses at the transit agency about the impact of service cuts and what he believed was excessive interference from Cuomo’s office.

A spokeswoman for Cuomo, Dani Lever, said the transit agency must do both — improve service and address concerns over crime.

“New Yorkers demand, deserve and are generously funding a subway system that is efficient and safe — the MTA is neither yet,” Lever said in a statement.

Still, the total number of major felonies on the subway is down slightly this year, according to police statistics. There were 1,774 major felonies during the first nine months of this year, down from 1,799 during the same period last year.

One category, robberies, was up more than 11% this year while assaults were flat and grand larcenies had declined. There were two murders in the first nine months of this year, compared with one last year; there were three rapes this year and none last year.

All told, the subway is remarkably safe considering that it serves about 5.5 million people every day. There are about seven major crimes per day, compared with nearly 50 major crimes per day in 1990 when many New Yorkers were leery about riding the subway, especially outside rush hour.

Cuomo’s office defended his decision to hire more officers by saying that he was specifically referring to arrests when he said subway crime was up and pointed to statistics showing that the number of felony arrests on the subway was up slightly this year.

Several recent incidents have raised concerns about subway crime, and New Yorkers regularly encounter agitated people on the subway who yell and threaten other passengers. One of the murders this year was captured in a graphic phone video that showed the victim struggling with his attackers before shots rang out.

Cuomo has also pointed to the subway’s rising homeless population as part of a decline in “quality of life issues.”

There were 2,178 homeless people on the subway during one day in January this year, compared with 1,771 last year — a more than 20% jump, according to a report by the transit agency. The report recommends that the new MTA officers enforce rules about not sleeping or panhandling on the subway and help with outreach to access shelters.

Expanding the police force will likely add to the transit agency’s financial challenges.

The annual cost for one new officer is nearly $93,000 in the first year, including overtime, health benefits and pension costs, according to a report by the Citizens Budget Commission. Hiring 500 officers and 81 supervisors will cost $56 million in the first year and grow to nearly $120 million per year in a decade.

The authority has a nearly $17 billion annual operating budget, and officials expect to have huge deficits in the coming years, reaching $433 million by 2023. But the agency’s separate capital budget is expected to get an influx of cash after Cuomo convinced state lawmakers to approve congestion pricing, a plan to toll drivers entering Manhattan that could raise $15 billion.

At the same time, the subway is struggling to rebound. The on-time rate for trains recently rose above 80% for the first time in years, from 65% in 2017. But there were still more than 35,000 train delays in September, including a train that broke down in Brooklyn in a smoke-filled tunnel.

Transit officials are also negotiating a new union contract with Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents more than 38,000 subway and bus workers. The negotiations have turned nasty, and workers recently held a large rally outside MTA headquarters.

The union, which has been a close ally of Cuomo’s and a major contributor to his campaigns, has won lucrative contracts in recent years. But major wage increases for workers could deepen the authority’s budget hole.

The idea of having MTA police officers patrolling the subway has also raised concerns that the state is intruding on a realm that has long been overseen by the city. The 2,500 officers currently on the subway work for the New York City Police Department. Cuomo has also received criticism for sending State Police troopers to New York City instead of upstate areas that rely on them.

The transit agency does have a separate force of more than 700 police officers who patrol the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and MTA bridges and tunnels.

Those officers are not required to wear body cameras, like city officers, prompting concerns about accountability for officers accused of wrongdoing. A state senator introduced a bill to require MTA officers to wear body cameras that record audio and video.

Cuomo and transit officials said the videos of police aggression on the subway were disturbing and agree that MTA officers should wear body cameras.

The authority’s managing director, Veronique Hakim, said in an interview that more officers were needed because both riders and subway workers were being assaulted.

“I don’t think our customers should feel that we’re doing anything less than absolutely everything we can to ensure their safety and security,” she said. “Subway safety is our top job.”

This article originally appeared in

The Subway Is in Financial Crisis. Are 500 More Police Officers Needed?

NEW YORK — More than 2,500 police officers patrol New York City’s subway, where crime is down sharply from the era of rampant violence and graffiti three decades ago.

Now Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council have agreed on a $1.7 billion plan that would sharply expand the number of protected bike lanes as part of a sweeping effort to transform the city’s streetscape and make it less perilous for bikers.

Its chief proponent, Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, calls it nothing less than an effort to “break the car culture.”

Such ambitions show how far New York has come since around 2007 when the city, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, started aggressively taking away space for cars by rolling out bike lanes and pedestrian plazas.

Under pressure from the City Council, the city would be required to build 250 miles of protected bike lanes in the coming years, along with a dizzying list of other street upgrades that safety advocates have long called for. The city now has about 1,250 miles of bike lanes, including 126 miles on city streets that are protected, meaning that a barrier separates the lanes from vehicles.

“New Yorkers know that the way we get around our city right now makes no sense,” said Johnson, who is expected to run for mayor in 2021. “Our streets have been really poorly planned in a piecemeal fashion.”

The cyclist deaths have prompted an outpouring of sadness and outrage. The victims have included a 10-year-old boy killed by an unlicensed driver steps from his home and a 52-year-old man who was hit out of nowhere by a careening car that was captured in a horrifying video.

Cities like Los Angeles and Washington are expanding their bike networks, but New York’s plans are far more expansive. San Diego plans to build 70 miles of new bike lanes, while Cambridge, Massachusetts, set rules this year to add protected lanes on all rebuilt roads. Copenhagen, Denmark, is the international model for bike infrastructure, with about 250 miles of protected bike lanes.

The bike lanes proposed in New York are a key part of Johnson’s so-called Streets Master Plan, a bill that is expected to be approved by the City Council on Wednesday. De Blasio’s administration had expressed concerns about the bill, but the mayor is now on board and says he will sign it.

“We know redesigning New York City’s streets will help us end tragic, preventable traffic deaths,” Will Baskin-Gerwitz, a mayoral spokesman, said in a statement. “Mayor de Blasio and his team have worked hard with the council to hone ambitious new goals that will save lives.”

The plan could face many challenges. Bike lanes have often faced fierce opposition, including lawsuits and resistance from community boards that balk at having parking spaces removed and worry about the effect on local residents and businesses. The city’s Department of Transportation would also have to move quickly to add workers and equipment to carry out so many construction projects at once.

The bill calls for the Transportation Department to release a plan every five years to make streets safer and to prioritize public transit, starting in December 2021. The city must hit targets every year, including building 150 miles of bus lanes that are physically separated from other traffic lanes or monitored by cameras over five years.

De Blasio has completed 100 miles of protected bike lanes since 2014, but the City Council’s plan is more aggressive and reflects Johnson’s disdain for cars.

He has argued that, among other problems, the city has too many parking spaces, comments that have been viewed as a frontal attack on the 2 million or so New Yorkers who have cars.

The City Council has become increasingly eager to make its mark and to push de Blasio, who recently ended a failed presidential bid, on key issues.

“This is the council playing a much bigger role in governance and trying to resolve some issues they see that the mayor was not going to tackle,” said Jon Orcutt, a longtime transit advocate and former city transportation official.

Orcutt pointed to a younger generation of council members who ride bikes or want new lanes in their districts, like Antonio Reynoso and Carlos Menchaca.

After the recent spate of cyclist deaths, de Blasio’s administration pledged to add 30 miles of protected bike lanes a year, up from an average of 20 miles per year over the past three years.

The Streets Master Plan calls for 30 miles of protected bike lanes in the first year and 50 miles in each subsequent year. The city must also build 20 miles of bus lanes that are protected by a barrier or camera enforcement in the first year and at least 30 miles every year after.

The idea of protected bus lanes is a new one for New York, where the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is starting to mount cameras on buses to catch vehicles blocking bus lanes and fine them. London has long used cameras mounted to buses as a way to keep its buses moving.

Under de Blasio, the city also closed 14th Street to most traffic to create a “busway” to prioritize buses and is retiming traffic lights to give priority to cyclists instead of motorists.

The official who oversees the subway and buses, Andy Byford, said he supported Johnson’s streets plan and its focus on expanding bus lanes.

“Early results from the dedicated busway on 14th Street show the huge passenger benefits that can be gained from giving transit priority,” Byford said in a statement.

De Blasio made street safety one of his signature initiatives shortly after he took office in 2014. His plan, known as Vision Zero, aims to eliminate traffic deaths by 2024.

Vision Zero has shown progress in recent years, bringing the number of traffic fatalities down to record lows. But the rise in cyclist deaths this year has alarmed safety advocates.

De Blasio’s office said the streets plan “builds on the foundations the mayor has built over the last several years under Vision Zero.”

But de Blasio and his transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, had raised concerns about the aggressive timeline set by Johnson. De Blasio said in a radio interview last month that he agreed on the goals of the streets plan but said it would be difficult to implement.

“I agree with him on his analysis of needing to reorient our society away from cars,” de Blasio said. “I agree with him that we need to be aggressive in terms of bike lanes and bus lanes. I think the dissonance here is about how we figure out achievable goals.”

To gain de Blasio’s support, Johnson’s office agreed to push back the start date for the first streets plan, from this month to December 2021, around the time the next mayor takes office. Until then, the city will keep its current commitment to build 30 miles of protected bike lanes each year.

At a City Council hearing in June, Trottenberg said her agency would need billions of dollars in additional funding to implement the plans, along with new staff members, offices and construction equipment.

“Achieving the targets in the bill as drafted would require a significantly reconfigured agency,” Trottenberg said.

The streets plan is expected to cost about $1.7 billion over 10 years, according to estimates from Johnson’s office.

The bill also calls for installing so-called transit signal priority at 750 intersections during the first year and 1,000 intersections per year after that. Transit signal priority is a system that allows buses to turn traffic lights green to speed them up. The city must also create 1 million square feet of pedestrian space in the first two years.

Orcutt, who now works at advocacy group Bike New York, praised the plan and said it formalized the idea of a citywide, interconnected bike network into law. He said the city’s request to push back the start date was reasonable because building 50 miles of protected bike lanes per year is a significant jump from the current rate.

“It’s going to take more people and more outreach,” he said. “There are some real logistical hurdles to hitting these targets.”

After Spate of Deaths, City Will Add 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

NEW YORK — Riding a bicycle in New York City is often a harrowing journey across a patchwork of bike lanes that leave cyclists vulnerable to cars. The dangers came into focus this year after 25 cyclists were killed on city streets — the highest toll in two decades.

The spike in deaths has set off criticism that an initiative by Mayor Bill de Blasio to make the streets safer is not working.

Now the mayor and the City Council have agreed on a $1.7 billion plan that would sharply expand the number of protected bike lanes as part of a sweeping effort to transform the city’s streetscape and make it less perilous for bikers.

Under pressure from the City Council, the city would be required to build 250 miles of protected bike lanes in the coming years, along with a dizzying list of other street upgrades that safety advocates have long called for. The city now has about 1,250 miles of bike lanes, including 480 miles that are protected, meaning that barriers separate the lanes from vehicles.

“New Yorkers know that the way we get around our city right now makes no sense,” Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said in an interview. “Our streets have been really poorly planned in a piecemeal fashion.”

The bike lanes are a key part of Johnson’s so-called Streets Master Plan, a bill that is expected to be approved by the City Council on Wednesday. De Blasio’s administration had expressed concerns about the bill, but the mayor is now on board and says he will sign it.

The city started to embrace cycling around 2007 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose rollout of bike lanes and pedestrian plazas made New Yorkers alternately excited and angry. De Blasio has continued to build out the system, completing 100 miles of protected bike lanes since 2014.

But the City Council’s plan is far more ambitious. It is part of a broader strategy by Johnson, who is expected to run for mayor in 2021, to “break the car culture.” For starters, Johnson says the city has too many parking spaces. Such comments were viewed as a frontal attack on the 2 million or so New Yorkers who have cars.

After Spike in Deaths, New York to Get 250 Miles of Protected Bike Lanes

The subway has rebounded from its nadir, when significant disruptions regularly upended the city, and riders lost faith in the system.

The on-time rate for trains has jumped to 80% this summer, up from 65% in 2017. Subway cars are breaking down less frequently, and the number of major delays is down.

But as the subway continues to dig itself out of a deep hole, its leaders are left facing an even bigger challenge — transforming the system into a modern subway worthy of a global capital.

Many daunting obstacles exist: Cuomo and the subway leader, Andy Byford, have not gotten along; the governor has balked at the $40 billion price tag for Byford’s sweeping plan to modernize the system; and the transit agency that runs the subway is facing a growing budget crisis that could lead to service cuts.

How do we fix the subway?

Experts agree that the only way to rebuild the system is by installing modern signals to replace the antiquated equipment — some built before World War II — that directs train traffic.

Last year, Byford introduced an ambitious plan, known as Fast Forward, to overhaul the signals on most lines over the next decade.

Byford said in an interview that the plan is crucial to achieving one of his main goals — pushing the on-time rate back above 90%.

“I want to see it in the high 90s,” he said. “I want us to be on par with the very best — Hong Kong, Singapore, London. What will get us there is fundamental, comprehensive re-signalling.”

So far, the agency has installed modern subway signals on just two of its 22 lines: The L train and the No. 7 train. Those lines now have the best on-time rates on the system at more than 90% each.

The plan to improve the subway scored a critical victory in Albany this year when state lawmakers approved congestion pricing, a plan to toll drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan that could raise $15 billion for the transit system.

But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that oversees the subway, buses and commuter railroads, is facing gaping deficits in the coming years, which could worsen if the economy falls into a recession.

At the same time, Cuomo and Byford have disagreed over the best way to fix subway signals. At one point, Byford grew so frustrated that he considered quitting, although he insisted that he wants to stay and fix the subway.

“100 percent — rock solid,” Byford said in the interview, describing his commitment to the job.

Am I crazy to think that the subway used to be better?

Nope. New York City’s subway was once pretty great.

In 2003, the on-time rate was a near-perfect 97%. Then the subway began to decline after years of disinvestment.

Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said in an interview that he moved to the city in 2001 and remembered when you could count on the subway.

“It feels like a bygone, nostalgic era of reliable service,” he said. “It was a totally different time.”

Byford said that it was unfair to compare the current on-time rate with the early 2000s for several reasons: Ridership is higher now, making it harder to run trains on time; a new electronic system to tally delays captures more incidents; and new rules protecting track workers have slowed down trains.

Cuomo and Byford have both taken credit for recent improvements. There were nearly 40,000 train delays in June, about half as many as occurred during the summer of 2017.

Trains have also become more reliable. The average distance that subway cars travel between breaking down rose to more than 130,000 miles this summer, from about 115,000 two years ago.

Many New Yorkers say the subway has a long way to go. Sara Smith, a lawyer who lives in Brooklyn, was delayed on a recent morning by a train with door problems.

“This is the third or fourth day this week that my commute was 30 minutes longer than it should be,” she said.

Curtis Harris, a mail deliveryman who lives in the Bronx, gave the subway an F grade.

Making it reliable again “would take a lot of work,” he said, “and I don’t believe that they’re really putting in that time.”

What role do the governor and mayor play?

Cuomo, a Democrat who controls the subway, has faced criticism for letting the system deteriorate on his watch. Now that the subway has stabilized, it remains to be seen whether Cuomo is committed to a full overhaul.

A spokeswoman for the governor, Dani Lever, credited the recovery to the “Subway Action Plan,” an $800 million effort by the transit agency to make urgent repairs. Cuomo now wants to reorganize the agency and increase spending on signals, elevators and new trains.

“The governor supports Andy and thinks he’s doing a good job and supports the elements of Fast Forward, especially signal modernization and accessibility,” Lever said in a statement, adding that Mayor Bill de Blasio and state lawmakers must help pay for the plans.

De Blasio, who is running for president, has been happy to let Cuomo take the heat for the subway.

But Johnson, who is likely running for mayor in 2021, wants the city to retake control of the subway. He argues that the system is too critical to the city’s success to let it be run by state leaders who do not even use it.

Johnson has also been a cheerleader for Byford, joking that if he ran for president the subway leader would be Johnson’s pick for a running mate. In an interview, Johnson said the subway can return to its glory days, if “we can unshackle Andy Byford from the dysfunctional bureaucracy of the MTA.”

A critical moment will come this month, when the authority releases its five-year capital plan, which will outline its priorities for 2020 to 2024. Transit advocates say Cuomo must prove that he is committed to fixing the subway by supporting a major increase in spending.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher for Gov. Cuomo and the MTA,” said Colin Wright, a senior associate at TransitCenter, an advocacy group. “To provide New Yorkers with a reliable, accessible transit system, they need to get the next capital program right.”

The Subway Is No Longer a Daily Disaster. But Can It Be Great Again?

NEW YORK — It was only two years ago that New York City’s subway fell into such a dire crisis that Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the system and hiring one of the world’s most respected transit leaders.

But perhaps one of the greatest symbols of the outdated system is the MetroCard — the flimsy fare card that was introduced a quarter century ago.

Cities like London and Chicago have embraced tap cards and smartphone payments while New Yorkers still stand at turnstiles trying to swipe their MetroCard at the precise slow, but not-too-slow, speed to avoid the dreaded, “Please swipe again.”

Now New York is finally getting a modern “tap-and-go” fare system that will make other cities jealous.

The system, called OMNY, short for One Metro New York, started in May on a handful of subway and bus routes. Riders can tap a credit card or smartphone on an electronic reader and keep walking.

OMNY will be installed on the rest of the subway and bus system by the end of next year and on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad, the two commuter railroads the authority operates, by 2021.

Subway riders are a notoriously cynical group, but early reviews have been positive.

“It works perfectly,” Greg Dorsainville, 39, of White Plains, New York, said as he tapped his Android phone on the turnstile at Grand Central Station on a recent morning. “It’s seamless.”

The switch to OMNY is a major moment for the subway and a rare bright spot for a system that continues to frustrate riders. The MetroCard system is obsolete and should have been retired years ago. OMNY is a glimpse at the future and an example of one effort to modernize the system.

“I’m amazed that we’re getting it done and it’s had no problems so far,” said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning at New York University. “This will make it easier and much faster to get to your train.”

The MetroCard has long bedeviled regular subway riders and famous ones, including Hillary Clinton, who had to swipe five times in a row to enter the subway during her presidential campaign in 2016.

Mayor Bill de Blasio tried multiple cards at a news conference this year — an effort that was mocked on Twitter. “It’s all in the wrist,” a rider advised.

When the MetroCard arrived in 1993, it was hailed as the “biggest change in the culture of the subways since World War II.” Its predecessor, the subway token, was officially retired in 2003, after it had been in use for 50 years.

Plans to replace the MetroCard over the past decade have been mired in delays — and costs have soared — even as other cities adopted more durable tap cards. Washington’s subway introduced its SmarTrip card two decades ago. Boston has the CharlieCard, San Francisco has the Clipper, and Hong Kong has the Octopus. But none of the transportation systems in these cities accept bank cards or smartphones yet.

In a surprising twist, New York took so long that it is now getting the best technology, known as contactless payments. Credit card companies and banks, like Chase and American Express, are mailing out special cards with an antenna that makes them compatible with OMNY readers. The readers also accept smartphones with “digital wallets” like Apple Pay.

OMNY is being put in place by Cubic, a payments company that was behind the MetroCard and that oversaw London’s fare system. The project is expected to cost about $644 million — $200 million more than what the authority estimated in 2016.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the subway and buses, is starting OMNY in phases, with the readers currently available on buses on Staten Island and at subway entrances on the 4, 5 and 6 lines between Grand Central Station in Manhattan and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Subway officials are taking a slow, cautious approach after other cities have struggled with hiccups like defective readers and riders getting double charged. For now, riders can pay for one trip at a time at the full fare of $2.75. Monthly and weekly passes will not be available through OMNY until 2021.

The agency will offer a physical OMNY card in 2021, and the MetroCard will meet its demise in 2023. Subway officials say there will always be a cash option for New Yorkers who do not have bank cards or smartphones.

The idea has progressed in fits and starts. A decade ago, the authority’s chairman Jay Walder, who had instituted the Oyster card in London, wanted to bring “tap-and-go” cards to New York. Officials wanted to phase out the MetroCard as early as 2012, but it did not happen, in part because credit card companies were slow to make their cards compatible.

The authority said in 2016 that it was soliciting bids from companies to install the system and would award a contract by the end of that year. That did not happen until October 2017.

The project cost rose by more than $200 million from an earlier estimate, transit officials said, because the scope grew to include things like incorporating the commuter railroads and funding for Cubic to run the “back end” technology that riders do not see.

Matt Cole, an executive at Cubic, said that OMNY’s launch had prompted banks to issue cards with contactless technology.

“Although other cities did have smart cards earlier than New York, in many ways New York has leapfrogged other cities in the world that have smart cards but not contactless,” Cole said in an interview.

Riders are already using the technology more than transit officials expected. More than 18,000 people used OMNY on a single weekday in June, according to the authority. The taps have come from credit cards issued around the world, representing 82 countries.

Al Putre, an MTA executive overseeing OMNY, said about 80% of the transactions were made with digital wallets on smartphones, not bank cards. Putre joined the transit agency in 1987 and helped oversee the introduction of the MetroCard.

“Not everyone has a contactless card,” he said. “Everyone has a smartphone.”

OMNY has other potential benefits, subway officials said: reducing crowds at ticket machines; allowing for all-door boarding on buses to speed up service; saving millions of dollars to maintain the MetroCard system; and helping reduce fare evasion which some riders blame broken ticket machines for.

Subway officials said they would protect riders’ personal information and that OMNY adheres to industry standards, like encrypting transaction data. The agency will not track customers, officials said, and will use anonymous data to analyze rider patterns.

At Grand Central Station, most subway riders were still using their MetroCards on a recent morning, even if they had trouble swiping. The OMNY readers confused some visitors who tried to tap them with their MetroCard. A subway worker stood to the side offering advice.

Ryan Frere used OMNY for the first time while visiting from Boston.

“It was super easy,” he said. “It’s a lot better than getting a ticket from the machine.”

Frere, 41, who works in the payments industry, said OMNY was easier for out-of-towners who did not know which subway pass to buy.

“It saved me some time,” he said. “I didn’t have to worry about figuring out how much to pay.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/nyregion/metrocard-mta-subway-discontinued.html" id="2ab07140-0a4a-31fa-a1cd-edaef9b0e750">The New York Times</a>.

Tap Replacing Swipe, in Subway Revolution

NEW YORK — It can often feel as though New York City’s subway is stuck in the Stone Age compared with systems in other cities across the world. Trains built in the 1960s still run on the subway tracks, and parts of the signal system date back to before World War II.

Mayor Bill de Blasio tried multiple cards at a news conference this year — an attempt that was mocked on Twitter. “It’s all in the wrist,” a rider advised.

OMNY is being implemented by Cubic, a payments company behind the MetroCard and which oversaw London’s fare system. The project is expected to cost about $644 million — $200 million more than what the authority estimated in 2016.

The idea has progressed in fits and starts. A decade ago, the authority’s chairman, Jay Walder, had wanted to bring “tap-and-go” cards to New York after he implemented the Oyster card in London. Officials wanted to phase out the MetroCard as early as 2012, but it did not happen, in part because credit card companies were slow to make their cards compatible.

OMNY has other potential benefits, subway officials said: reducing crowds at ticket machines; allowing for all-door boarding on buses to speed up service; saving millions of dollars to maintain the MetroCard system; and helping reduce fare evasion which some riders blame on broken ticket machines.

So Long, Swiping. The 'Tap-and-Go' Subway Is Here.

NEW YORK — It can often feel like New York City’s subway is stuck in the Stone Age compared with systems in other cities across the world. Trains built in the 1960s still run on the subway tracks, and parts of the signal system date back to before World War II.

There is a new plan, backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to overhaul the sprawling agency that oversees New York City’s subway, buses and two commuter railroads.

A $4 million report by a consulting firm, AlixPartners, made a list of recommendations, such as centralizing human resources and creating a “chief transformation officer.” AlixPartners has advised struggling companies like Enron and General Motors.

The 37-page report released Wednesday is painfully dry reading. But the idea behind it is that the agency needs to cut costs and use the money it collects from riders and taxpayers more efficiently, especially now that state leaders approved congestion pricing — a toll to enter Manhattan’s busiest neighborhoods starting in 2021 that will pay for subway upgrades.

Cuomo, who controls the authority, initially praised the plan, though he raised doubts this week about whether transit leaders could complete the necessary reforms. Some rider groups were not impressed by the plan.

What’s in the plan?

Cuomo has called the authority “a governmental Frankenstein created in the 1960s.” That’s a pretty accurate description.

It was created in 1968 to bring the subway, buses and railroads under one umbrella — along with key bridges and tunnels — in the hope that tolls from the bridges and tunnels could subsidize money-losing trains. The authority now has more than 70,000 employees working across various subdivisions.

The report suggests streamlining the agency, by centralizing all construction projects under one group and all support functions, like legal and procurement, under another group.

A “chief transformation officer” would implement the changes and the agency’s first “MTA accessibility officer” would focus on improving access for riders with disabilities. Transit officials believe the changes will save $500 million per year.

But transit groups say the report was put together hastily and could delay plans by Andy Byford, the subway’s leader, who has already improved the system.

Tri-State Transportation Campaign said: “A rushed, three-month process with no public input is a lesson in how not to do reform of the nation’s largest transit system.”

The plan could “slow down urgent improvements for transit riders that are already underway,” said TransitCenter, another advocacy group.

What does it mean for Andy Byford?

Byford has been popular among New Yorkers since he started running the subway a year and a half ago.

But Byford has quarreled recently with Cuomo, and some transit experts view the new structure as being a demotion for Byford.

Byford oversees New York City Transit, the agency that runs the subway and buses. Under the new plan, he would no longer be responsible for major construction projects to fix the subway. He would instead focus on operations, safety and maintenance.

Top officials at the authority say the reorganization is not intended to weaken Byford’s role and that he will continue to be involved in the implementation of his ambitious “Fast Forward” plan to fix the subway, which focuses on modernizing the antiquated signal system.

Byford hired a signals expert, Pete Tomlin, who has worked on transit systems in Toronto and London, to oversee the signal upgrades.

Tomlin will remain at the authority, according to officials.

The AlixPartners report credits the agency’s “subway action plan” for fixing the system — an $800 million effort by Cuomo to make improvements. But some transit advocates say Byford’s efforts to speed up service have been just as instrumental.

What does it mean for riders?

Most riders probably won’t notice the bureaucratic changes. But they will notice if the subway continues to improve or if more stations get elevators.

The subway has gotten better this year — the on-time rate has reached 80%, up from 65% during the summer of 2017, when the system fell into crisis. Byford wants to bring the on-time rate into the 90s, but it is unclear if he can enact his plans under the new proposal.

Cuomo has said Byford’s approach for upgrading signals is too slow, and he has pressed the agency to try new technology. Under the new plan, major projects, like signals, would likely be overseen by Janno Lieber, the head of capital construction.

The authority’s chairman, Patrick Foye, promised major improvements for riders.

“This transformation will allow us to finally give our customers the system they deserve, and prepares us to execute on what is likely to be the biggest capital plan in MTA history,” Foye said in a statement.

The authority’s board is expected to vote on the reorganization next week, and the public will have a chance to weigh in. Cuomo urged the board to tackle another issue as part of the overhaul: homelessness on the subway, a growing problem.

How many workers will lose their jobs?

The overhaul could lead to as many as 2,700 job cuts.

Transit officials say they hope to trim the work force through “attrition” and by not filling vacancies. They said layoffs were a last resort.

Any necessary cuts are likely to be made at the agency’s headquarters, and not from front-line workers like signal maintainers, who are fixing the system.

Transport Workers Union Local 100, the union that represents thousands of subway and bus workers, is currently negotiating a new contract with the authority. The union and Cuomo have been close allies, but they have disagreed recently over whether overtime abuse is a widespread problem at the authority.

The report recommends standardizing time and attendance procedures across all agencies to help tackle overtime abuse.

Cuomo sent a letter to the authority’s board on Tuesday criticizing transit leaders for their “chronic failure” as managers and union workers for not performing as well as outside contractors.

John Samuelsen, a union leader, responded that his workers had “held the subway together with toothpicks and band-aids” during a period of disinvestment that led to the transit crisis.

“We do far better than outside vendors ever could,” he said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/nyregion/mta-subway-overhaul.html" id="6eca9ce0-8689-34e0-aadc-75578de60e44">The New York Times</a>.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons

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