Underpaid Genius

Michael Grynbaum and Robert Gebeloff,  Digging Into On-Time Figures for New York Trains

On weekday mornings, 1 in 10 trains entering Pennsylvania Station arrived late, two-thirds by 10 minutes or more. At the peak of the rush, from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., about 25 percent of New Jersey Transit trains entering Manhattan arrived late; about 2 in 5 of the late trains were tardy by at least 15 minutes. (The trains’ scheduled runs are a little more than an hour on average.)

These are among the findings of an examination by The New York Times of the more than 685,000 trips in 2009 involving the region’s three major commuter railroads, using records requested by The Times that had not previously been made available to the public.

The review found that the official figures for on-time performance, often used as a promotional tool, contrasted sharply with the experience of tens of thousands of passengers who regularly ride the trains at peak hours. In fact, the most important trips for daily commuters, those that can make or break breakfast with a client or dinner with a spouse, experience far more delays than the statistics may let on.

Trips to and from Penn Station during rush hours, for instance, were two and a half times as likely to be late as trips taken at any other time. The disappointment among riders can be further appreciated by considering the record of specific commuter lines. For example, morning commuters on New Jersey Transit who passed through the Summit station were late on 1 of every 6 trips, nearly a third by more than 20 minutes. And Long Island Rail Road commuters who traveled from Huntington to Manhattan at rush hour arrived late on 1 of every 10 trips, twice the average for the railroad.

Performance varies by railroad, with commuters from Connecticut and Westchester County, who ride the Metro-North Railroad, faring better than those from New Jersey and Long Island.

Looks like the Hudson River Valley gets extra points over NJ and Long Island for my 20onetwenty project. Plus the Metro North lines get Grand Central Station to themselves, instead of nasty Penn Station.

Yeganeh June Torbati, Aging Transit Systems Face Budget Crunch

More riders, aging mass transit systems and inadequate money for maintenance and upgrades — a familiar story line for commuters and those faced with the task of keeping the trains running. What is new this summer is that the problems are making headlines again, in part because of an extended heat wave that has smothered so much of the country.

It would take $77.7 billion just to get the country’s public transit systems into shape, according to a report released last week by the Federal Transit Administration. By comparison, the report stated, the entire amount spent on rehabilitating and reinvesting in public transit nationwide in 2008 was $12 billion to $13 billion.

The US has spent — no kidding — a trillion dollars on totally pointless wars in Central Asia in the past decade, but we can’t pay the upkeep on mass transit?

The US government spends $70B annually on highways (which is inadequate to maintain them: most goes to new highway construction), which fits the car-obsessed culture we have built.

But if we are ever to get off the gasoline binge of the past 100 years the US will have to invest huge sums of money into mass transit: trains, in particular. We need to decrease investments in new highways, and divert funds to repairing the rails, bridges and roads we already have, before they collapse.

But obstructionists in Washington won’t pull out of the pointless wars, or fund necessary investments in a 21st century transportation system.

I am launching into a new project, one that might several years to accomplish, but one that I am looking forward to diving into right away.

I am planning at some point in the next few years to move from northern Virginia, which has been my legal residence (if not my greatest love) for the past 18 years, and to move north, somewhere near New York City, but not in the city. I need to be withing striking distance — so I can easily travel to NYC to work, to meet with people, and so on — but I don’t need to be in the city everyday.

Partly, my standoffishness about living smack in NYC is my partner, Sarah’s, reluctance to live in the heart of the urban jungle. But it is also motivated by a desire to live in a quieter place, and to be near some navigable water (and I don’t mean the East River).

So, I would like to find a place — the imagined town of Boondocks — with certain characteristics:

• A city or town with at least one ‘20 minute’ neighborhood — This is a term being promoted by the city government of Portland Oregon to denote a highly walkable neighborhood: one where restaurants, banks, libraries, parks, farm market, movie houses, bars, stores, and train station are extremely close, and cars are not a necessity. Note: I am a serious foodie so the quality of the bistros and markets is essential. Artsy, but not kitsch. Not a slum, but not a gated community of rich white people.
• Within two hours of downtown NYC by train — This is the ‘onetwenty’ half of the name. I’d like to be able to walk or ride my bike to the train station in Boondocks, and manage to get into the city in roughly two hours or less. This means a 6:20am train means I can easily make a 10am meeting in Manhattan. And likewise, getting on the 6:30pm outbound means a late dinner in Boondocks.
• On navigable water — I miss the ocean. I grew up in Boston MA, and I could smell the ocean there. I would be willing to swap for a large river, say the lower Hudson. One of the parts of my plan is to take up sailing in a small way, but that’s only one of the many reasons for being near water.

This move is not going to take place for some time: at least a year or so, perhaps three or four. Sarah has a job in the DC area she likes and makes her some good money (long-term care insurance: she was #1 in sales in 2009 for her company). We still have two boys in local colleges, and my Dad, Tom, is still with us, although he is, frankly, unwell.

And there are a number of considerations that would be important for others — schools, and so on — that are not a big deal to us.

Some of this is a respite to the technical world I float in, and that may become a sideline of this, as well. I will be investigating options for Boondocks in real depth, as a form of travel writing. It’s a new sideline I hope to invest time in, and who knows where that might lead.

The first area of investigation will be the lower Hudson, starting at the northern boundaries of New York City, and moving up river as far as 120 minutes on the Metro-North or Amtrak will take me, which looks like Poughkeepsie.

So, over the next few weeks I will be exploring this theme here — see the tag 20onetwenty — and then moving it to a new Tumblr called www.20onetwenty.com.

If I get to take a vacation in the next few months — which is questionable, since I am involved in a number of projects, as well as getting my Reston VA house ready for renovation and sale — it will certainly be to the Hudson River valley, on the lookout for Boondocks.

Do you know any towns I should explore first?