(The following story by Steve Ritea appeared on the Newsday website on March 4.)
NEW YORK — Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Elliot Sander laid out his vision for public transit in the New York region yesterday, promising enhanced service systemwide as well as links between regional rails if funding is made available.
“The region’s economic vitality, livability and beauty are inextricably linked to the fortunes of the MTA,” he told a crowd of nearly 1,000 gathered at Cooper Union in Manhattan for the first-ever state of the MTA address. “If we shirk our responsibility to the MTA network, we put our region at risk.”
Sander also announced that positive revenues will allow the MTA to move forward with $30 million in systemwide service improvements over the next few months. The MTA previously said it was hoping to make those improvements, but had not been able to commit to them until now.
On the Long Island Rail Road that means adding peak-hour trains, including a morning train from Farmingdale, an evening train to Farmingdale, an evening train to Hicksville and an evening train to Far Rockaway in the fall. The LIRR will also add at least two cars to seven morning peak-hour trains and one evening peak-hour train.
On city subways, the improvements include increasing evening service on the 6 and 1 trains this summer as well as extending weekday service on the B and W trains until 11 p.m., among other things.
The MTA is working with the Port Authority to explore whether to create a second AirTrain service to La Guardia Airport, connecting from the LIRR station at Woodside, he said. The current AirTrain connects to Kennedy Airport from Jamaica.
In the not-too-far-off future the MTA will also look to upgrade or replace MetroCards, he said, with “a smart, contactless device with enough functionality that some day it will work for all public transit from Maine to North Carolina.”
The future also involves establishing links among LIRR, Metro-North and New Jersey Transit. The first will start in the summer of 2009, when Metro-North trains on the New Haven line travel to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on football weekends.
More immediately, Sander said many of the MTA’s current needs are riding on Albany’s approval of a $29.5-billion capital plan to fund MTA operations and projects through 2013.
With a million more people expected to live in the city by 2030 and ridership projected to grow by 20 percent, such funding is vital, he said.
“We recognize that $29.5 billion is a lot of money, but we have no choice, and I’m sure you’d agree,” he said.