From four new Bryant Park elevators to 42 miles of A and C track, the agency wants drivers to know exactly where their $9 went, down to the soap dispenser.
OZONE PARK, United States (Spintaxi) – The MTA has begun posting signs crediting congestion pricing for its newest station upgrades, and after a brief internal review, the agency has concluded that the signs are working so well it would like to put one on every object in the transit system that has ever been repaired, painted, swept or looked at with intent.
The campaign began in Midtown, where the MTA broke ground on four new elevators, a new accessible passageway and new restrooms at the 42 St-Bryant Park/5 Av station. As amNY reported from the groundbreaking, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said signs at the site will read “A better Bryant Park … made possible by congestion pricing,” and that the agency wants everyone to “understand the benefits” of the toll revenue.
Congestion Pricing Signs, Coming Soon to a Stair Near You
The $9 base toll for drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street is now steering $15 billion toward the MTA’s capital plan, including $2 billion for accessibility work at no fewer than 23 stations, among them Kingsbridge Rd and 167 St in the Bronx, Gates Av in Bushwick, and Briarwood and Parsons Blvd in Queens. Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development, described making the system’s 472 stations accessible as an “engineering feat.”
According to a draft signage directive recovered by this publication from a supply closet at 2 Broadway, the agency’s attribution program is expanding rapidly:
MEMO, MTA OFFICE OF GRATITUDE AND WAYFINDING. Effective immediately, every capital improvement funded in whole or in part by congestion pricing shall display the approved attribution sign. Attribution shall also apply to each elevator, each elevator button, each restroom, each restroom’s soap, each replacement light bulb and each newly unclogged drain. Where an improvement is too small for a sign, such as a single bolt, the bolt shall be engraved. Where an improvement is invisible, such as a signal, a sign shall be placed near the signal explaining that it is there. Riders shall not remove, deface or lean on the signs, as the signs were also made possible by congestion pricing.
Lorraine DeSantis, a spokesperson for the Office of Gratitude and Wayfinding, said the program is about transparency. “A driver from Westchester pays $9 to enter Manhattan, and for years he has had no idea where it goes,” she said. “Now he can park, take a train to Bryant Park, ride a brand-new elevator and stand in front of a sign that tells him he paid for it. We believe that is closure.”
The A Train Gets Signals From This Century
The biggest sign of all may be going up on the A and C lines, where, as the Jersey Vindicator laid out, a $1.9 billion project will replace a signal system from the 1930s with Communications-Based Train Control across roughly 42 miles of track and 23 stations, from High Street in Brooklyn to Ozone Park-Lefferts Boulevard in Queens. The Fulton Street portion is supported by congestion pricing revenue. Completion is expected in the second quarter of 2032.
Governor Kathy Hochul said that “upgrading nearly 100-year-old signals does more than just modernize infrastructure that is long overdue.” Signal maintainers agreed, noting that the current equipment was installed when the fare was a nickel and remains, in the words of one veteran technician, “emotionally still in the nickel era.”
“These signals have seen everything,” said Walter Bramwell, a retired signal maintainer who lives two blocks from the Rockaway Boulevard station. “They saw the Dodgers leave. They saw the token come and go. They saw the MetroCard come and go. They have been red for so long that some of them now think red means go, and frankly, on a Sunday, they have a point.”
Nine Days on the Shuttle Bus
Starting November 7, A train service between Rockaway Boulevard and Ozone Park-Lefferts Boulevard will be suspended for nine days while major construction begins, with shuttle buses running in its place. Riders in Ozone Park say they support the upgrade in principle and in a vague, long-term, 2032 sort of way.
“They told me the new signals will shorten waits and slash delays,” said Angela Ferraro, a comic who hosts a monthly show in the back of a Howard Beach pizzeria. “Great. My son is in fourth grade. When the project is done, he’ll be in college and he’ll get to class on time. I’ll be in a shuttle bus, but he’ll be on time.”
The arrangement, in which the trains get the upgrade while the riders get a bus, reminded Ferraro of a dairy farm that gave its calf barn a fresh-air system while the farmer kept breathing tractor exhaust. “The train gets the fresh air,” she said. “We get the shuttle bus with the window that doesn’t close and the guy eating a whole rotisserie chicken.”
Kwame Asante, who does stand-up at a Bed-Stuy coffee shop that turns into a bar at 6 p.m., said he was most worried about the cables being installed for future cellular service in the tunnels. “Right now, the tunnel between Hoyt-Schermerhorn and Nostrand is the last place in New York where nobody can reach you,” he said. “It’s the only peace I have. Congestion pricing is about to pay for my boss to find me.”
Not Every Elevator Gets a Sign
MTA officials stressed that the attribution program will be limited to transit. Out in farm country, they noted, a grain rally could cost elevators $9.6 billion, and not one of those elevators will receive a plaque. “Our elevators are lucky,” said DeSantis. “Theirs hold soybeans. Ours hold strollers, a man with a bicycle and somehow, always, a bag of laundry with no owner.”
Readers who have followed the toll since its first day can find the long saga of congestion pricing, its fans and its many furious opponents covered at bohiney.com, where Bohiney Magazine has been keeping a sign count of its own.
As of this week, the Office of Gratitude and Wayfinding reports 1,140 signs installed, 3,600 on order and one placed, apparently by accident, on the 1930s signal at Rockaway Boulevard, which now announces that it was made possible by congestion pricing while the light underneath continues, with great dignity, to show red.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/