Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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News. I made a joke earlier to Paul Sweeney. How are you getting home on Tuesday? How do you get back to work? And I got silence from Paul. You don't really know right now, do you?
No, I don't. I mean, New Jersey Transit will wait on that, but I suspect I'll be spending another evening in the metropolis.
We will get an update now from a gentleman with experience of this, with legit major storm experience. Jenna Lieber joins us now with the MTA. Jenna, what's your biggest headache right now?
Listen, we got service running. The challenges are well known. We got to keep our snow fighting equipment. We got jet engine snow blowers operating on the subways, literally clearing the tracks, especially in the outdoor areas. The challenge of buses moving around is the same as any vehicle. But we are meeting the challenge, Tom, Paul.
We're running full subway service, albeit on a little reduced frequencies. We got buses out there. Metro North is operating on a reduced schedule. The one piece of our system that is on suspension is the Long Island Railroad. It's no secret that Long Island's getting hammered, and that wasn't the same place to operate. But otherwise, subways, buses, commuter rail operating.
How does the wind play into it? I mean, I'm calling it a snowy cane. I get the temperature. Snow is snow.
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Chapter 2: What is the impact of the NYC blizzard on public transport?
But like the wind on the various trunks that you have, I mean, underground, it doesn't affect it. But how do you adapt to the wind, Jenna Lieber?
The issue with wind mostly is actually the impact it has on drifting. For example, we have some areas of the subway system that are what we call an open cut. That's like a little valley, a depressed area below grade, but it's still open to the sky. And snow tends to accumulate, and the wind pushes the snow into those areas.
The drifting on the commuter railroads sometimes will cover the third rail, our source of power. So that is and obviously for for people who are driving buses and even trains, the visibility issues associated with wind, that wind is the dominant factor in determining when we can bring back Long Island Railroad service at the east end of our system.
So what is the latest thinking, Jono, about the Long Island Railroad here? Because, again, as you've mentioned and we've heard from the weather folks, that's really bearing the brunt of this storm.
Yeah, well, we did an orderly shutdown last night at about 1 a.m. The goal is always to get everybody home. We did that last night with some extra service late, late. And now we're going to be focused on orderly resumption of service, hopefully in time to operate tomorrow when the world will be getting a little bit back to normal. So that's the approach that we take.
Safety first, you know, and taking account of where the snow accumulations and the drifting may have impacted on service. You know, one thing to bear in mind is in our big train yards, that's where we tend to get the biggest drifting issues.
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Chapter 3: How is the MTA preparing for the blizzard's challenges?
And sometimes that inhibits your ability to put cars into the system, into service. So we'll be digging out from in the yards and making sure that, again, the third rail and the tracks themselves are clear of snow.
We continue with Jenna Lieber, MTA chair. Quality time from his crisis center. Paul Sweeney with Jenna Lieber.
Jenna, so all your personnel, the critical personnel of the MTA, how do you manage getting those folks to where they need to be? Because, boy, they have to get there just like the rest of us.
It's part of the deal when you sign up to work for the MTA that you may have to come in under extreme circumstances. When the rest of the world is being told to stay home, our workers are being told to come in, and they do. They worked through the night. They worked heavily yesterday. We got 70,000 employees at the MTA.
Chapter 4: What measures are in place for snow removal on subways?
Thousands of them have been out. Many of them have slept in You know, in bus garages or in the rail control center where our head of subway spent the night, at the bus command center, it's part of the deal working for the NTA. And I talked to Governor Hochul in the last hour or two, and she's really focused on, you know, tip of the hat to the workforce.
General Lieber, I love artificial intelligence. It can ruin your day. General, you've got to help me here with the $1.8 million per inch myth. Now, this is a Department of Sanitation that every inch of snow costs $1.8 million. What's your every inch of blizzard that costs the MTA? Do you have a number? Even if you don't tell me, do you have a number in your head?
I'll tell you the absolute truth. I have no idea whatsoever. You've given me a new metric. We use analytics here like crazy to evaluate how well we're doing, hopefully to operate more efficiently every day. You know, cost per car mile, cost per revenue mile for the subway and bus and commuter rail. You've given me a new metric to study. But right now, I have no idea what to say to you.
John, this is the second big, big winter storm of the season. It's arguably one of the biggest storms we've had in decades in this area. How's your system kind of holding up? Is there a cumulative effect where, boy, we really don't want to have a third or fourth storm this season?
Honestly, the challenge is the same every time, which is you have to get the snow off. You have to make sure you have enough people to operate fully. You have to chain all the buses. You have to move subway cars around and store them in the tunnels. You know, it's not that every storm makes it harder.
To the contrary, you know, for better or worse, we're getting better at preparing for these because we've had repetitive storms. And we're going to continue to try to get better. In the era of climate change, we're dealing with all kinds of extreme weather events. You know, right now we're forgetting about torrential rainfall and rising sea levels. But those are issues for the MTA as well.
What does the morning look like? Let's say 4 or 5 a.m. Tuesday morning. Mr. Lieber, can you say back to normal?
I don't know about normal, but listen, our friends at the Department of Sanitation are clearing not just the streets, but the bus stops. That's really important. Something that I know the mayor wants to do better at compared to the first time around. So that our bus people who depend on buses will be able to get on and off them without having to climb over a four foot mound of snow.
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Chapter 5: How does wind affect subway operations during a blizzard?
That's an important issue. That's brilliant. Who actually picks up a shovel and shovels a bus stop? Who is that person?
It's folks who work for the Department of Sanitation. They're supplemented. This is City of New York as opposed to MTA, but they're supplemented by Parks Department workers. And they're actually hiring folks off the street for extra shovelers this time around. So I'm very hopeful that that particular challenge will be addressed.
And we're going to be clearing not just the tracks, but also our yards, as I mentioned, which is where trains tend to get stuck.
uh and and there are you know a lot of complex switches that can inhibit things if they're not properly right in order one more question paul you were you were impressed by the buses yeah just walking to work this morning i saw some of the buses here talk to us about the buses because boy i haven't seen too many snow plows out yet because the storm is still raging here how did the buses adapt here
It's old-fashioned stuff, Paul. We put chains on the tires of every bus, and that gets done in the days leading up to the storm when we know it's coming. You know, forecasting is getting better and better. We chain the entire fleet, and we take all the articulated buses, which tend to move around a little more in slippery conditions. We take them out of service, and we make plans accordingly.
General, thank you so much for taking precious time this morning. This is the MTA of New York City as they deal with the storm, as I'm sure we're seeing in Philadelphia and Boston.
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