Chapter 1: What challenges did NYC face during the recent winter storm?
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Joining us now, we mentioned the wonderful snow removal above ground. There is beneath the ground as well, on the bus as well. Jono Lieber joins us now, MTA chair and CEO here in New York City. Jono, I remember years ago in Boston, the snow, the salt, the slush drifted down and basically shut down the large system of Kenmore Square.
Are you and your team worried about major breakdowns just because of the harshness of this? Or is it just an emergency as usual?
You know, Tom, it's an interesting point. Rob was talking about the advances in forecasting.
Chapter 2: How did the MTA prepare for the winter storm's impact?
The advantage of that is it allows us to do a ton of preparation and 15,000 MTA workers labored over the weekend and into today. to make sure we could put on service. And we were able to maintain bus and subway and Metro North and Long Island Railroad commuter service right through the storm, with delays, with imperfections, but we were able to operate, which is not always the case in the past.
And that's because of preparation. And, you know, our concern now is we're operating a full Monday morning commute, which is amazing. But, you know, obviously with the risk of thaw and icing, that presents new problems. So we're moving on in how we manage the impacts of the storm, just as you suggest.
John, give us the status of the subway and the bus system as it is right now, and kind of how you think it might play out over the next 24 hours.
Well, the bottom line is we're operating service on all subway lines, on all bus lines. There are some delays, partly because we have crews that live in New Jersey, and they're not able to get in because New Jersey Transit is out of business for today.
Chapter 3: What is the current status of NYC's subway and bus systems after the storm?
Whoa, shade there in New Jersey, a little bit across Hudson River, Shane. No, but listen, everybody's different. We were able to survive this storm with, as I said, 15,000 people doing a ton of work. But the bottom line is we're running every line. Metro North is running 550 trains today.
Long Island Railroad running 750 trains, both of them on kind of robust holiday schedules or weekend schedules. If you're listening, MTA commuter, check your train time app or your MTA website, mta.info, for specifics. But we're running service, and we're ready to keep that going as we go forward in the week.
General, persistent cold is in the forecast here. We heard from Rob Carolin.
Chapter 4: How does extreme cold weather affect public transit operations?
Maybe for the week, maybe two weeks of well below average temperatures. How does that impact your system?
Listen, ice is the enemy of good service on rail, right? So you have to run your de-icing trains constantly, make sure that the switches don't actually freeze up. And we have maintainers literally standing by our major switches, our major interlockings to constantly de-ice. But we got all the snow by running service yesterday right through the system. We got the snow off of the third rail.
We've been maximizing our use of diesel engines on the commuter rails, which don't depend on the third rail. And we're going to keep at it. So there are new challenges brought on by icing, especially for the bus system, which is 100% chained.
Chapter 5: What are the implications of potential free bus service in NYC?
All the wheels are chained. But we're going to keep managing through.
Can I ask one non-storm question?
Sure.
Yeah, what is so fascinating is you've been very vocal in your support of our new mayor, and you've also said that we need a lot of study of free buses. Give us an update on how close we are to free bus service of the MTA.
You know, today is today's really about the muscling through the storm, honestly. But but, you know, I'll just say this is that the mayor, the new mayor, Mamdani, is very pro transit. And I welcome that. I've also made clear that, you know, if we're going to talk about something as radical and as as impactful as making a whole section of our system free,
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Chapter 6: How is the MTA planning for future challenges in transit service?
We need to do a ton of study and it's not a flip the switch type thing. So I'm sure that, you know, the governor who is leading, you know, with her state of the state message, making a lot of investments, but also mindful of the we've brought the MTA back to financial stability under Hochul's leadership. And we don't want to mess with that.
So we'll be moving methodically under Governor Hochul on addressing this idea.
Amid the storm, thank you for the conversation. Jenna Lieber is with the MTA chair and CEO as well.