Jim O'Grady

(New York, NY - WNYC) The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is beefing up customer service at area airports — and getting some James Cameron-style help in the form of avatars.

The avatar is a life-sized flat screen in the shape of a woman who activates when a customer approaches. In a perky, smirky, sexy voice, she dispenses flight information and tips about airport services like the location of shuttle buses, rest rooms and taxis. She gives the same spiel to every customer.

Human version of an airport customer service rep on left, avatar on right. (Photo by Jim O'Grady / WNYC)

Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye unveiled one of the computerized avatars at a press conference at LaGuardia Airport Monday morning. He said the machines are meant to supplement the airport's 350 flesh-and-blood customer representatives, who will soon be joined by 70 new hires.

A total of five avatars are scheduled for installation at LaGuardia, JFK and Liberty Newark airports in early July. Unlike most humans, they won't be interactive. But Foye said he hopes a future iteration of the talking machines will hold conversations with passengers.

That didn't stop the demonstration avatar from extolling her advantages over human employees: "I never take a break, don't charge overtime, hardly ever take sick leave and I don't need a background check." Later, she smiled suggestively and said, "I can...be just about anything you want me to be."

(In the video above that's PA Chief Pat Foye, with white beard and glasses, in the background around the 35-second mark.)

The Authority also unveiled new airport apps and dozens of information kiosks and electronic device charging stations to help travelers.

Air passengers will also soon encounter what the Port Authority is calling the first use of avatar technology at North American airports: holograms in the form of customer service ...

On his job application with the MTA, driver Ophadell Williams admitted his driver's license had been suspended from 1996 to 2003 because of "child support." He also wrote, "I made a couple of mistakes in my life."

That did not stop the MTA from hiring him. But then a background check revealed Williams had failed to disclose a pair of felony convictions. A superintendent, on finding that out, wrote in a memo that "It is imperative that Mr. Williams" termination be completed as soon as possible." Williams resigned a few days later, after two weeks on the job. The MTA says Williams never got behind the wheel of a bus with passengers.

Private tour bus operator World Wide Travel hired Williams as a driver in 2010. He was driving a bus for the company in March, 2011, when he crashed on I-95, killing 15 passengers.

NTSB photo

National Transportation Safety Board documents released today show that Williams' cellphone and rental car were in almost continuous use during the three days before he made a pre-dawn run from Connecticut to New York City--times when he said he'd been sleeping. A preliminary report last year said Williams was speeding at 78 miles per hour shortly before he lost control of the bus, which struck a highway signpost.

A toxocology test cleared Williams of drug use, and a breath test that he took at the scene of the accident showed that he hadn't been drinking.

The NTSB says it will release "an analysis of the collision, along with conclusions and its probable cause" on June 5. Williams has pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

NTSB photo

 

Documents released by federal investigators show the bus driver involved in a deadly Bronx crash when returning with passengers from a Connecticut casino last year was hired in 2007 to drive a city bus.

NYC subway signal. (photo by CC by Flickr user HelveticaFanatic)

(New York, NY - WNYC) Ten NY transit workers are set to be arrested Friday for allegedly falsifying records about how many subway signals they inspected in the years prior to 2009. But the low-level inspectors aren't the real criminals in the so-called "signalgate" scandal, says Transport Workers Union president John Samuelsen. He slammed the planned arrests, saying managers are the culprits.

The NY Daily News first reported the story; a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance confirmed to TN that the arrests are pending.

The signals keep trains moving smoothly and prevent them from crashing into each other. The MTA's own investigation released in 2010 found maintenance goals were not being met and records were falsified "on a widespread basis" to cover that up.

Samuelsen said the workers, who are expected to be charged with felonies, are low level signal maintainers and managers who were assigned excessive workloads. He said their supervisors may also have falsified their inspection records without the workers' knowledge.

"It's astounding to us that the senior level bosses that orchestrated this entire charade, this entire issue that led to fraudulent signal inspections, have been untouched by the district attorney," Samuelsen said.

He said senior management "put severe pressure on low-level field level supervisors and signal maintainers to perform fraudulent signal inspections."

Samuelsen further maintained that that a bar code system used to verify work "was so corrupt that any over-zealous manager could input an employee’s identification credentials and sign for as much equipment as he felt necessary."

The real perpetrators of subway signal inspection fraud, he claims, have so far gone untouched despite an investigation by NY MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger. "There's an absolute witch hunt going on here against transit workers and low level supervisors," Samuelson said, " while the big bosses hide behind the curtains."

Neither the Manhattan District Attorney's office nor Kluger would comment further on the case.

But MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg weighed in. He said, "If Mr. Samuelsen has any information that people involved in fraudulent signal inspections have not been prosecuted, he should present it to the district attorney."

NY MTA Signal Division Chairman John Chiarello told WNYC that TWU members arrested in the Signalgate investigation could expect to be backed by the union as they make their way through the legal system. "Leadership of the union is going to stand behind the members and we’re going to defend them," he said.

Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen slammed the planned arrests on Friday of 10 NY MTA workers for faking signal inspections in the subway. The workers allegedly falsely claimed they checked the signals that keep trains moving smoothly and prevent them from crashing into each other.

NY MTA workers repairing subway track during a Fastrack service shutdown. (MTA Photos/flickr)

The NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Fast Track program, which shuts down large portions of subway lines entirely overnight, isn't just for Manhattan any more. Outer borough riders who take the subway late at night will see the pilot program expanded--possibly to their chagrin.

Each Fastrack shutdown lasts Monday to Friday, from 10 at night until 5 in the morning. The program, started in January, allows crews to work for seven straight hours on long stretches of track without stopping to let trains pass by. But that means late night riders have to scramble to find a shuttle bus or trek to another subway to get to where they want to go. The NY MTA website warns they should expect to add about 20 minutes to each trip.

The NY MTA explains the need for the program this way: "Fastrack is a safer and more efficient way to maintain and clean New York City's sprawling subway — a system that never closes...800 MTA employees are able to inspect signals, replace rails and cross ties, scrape track floors, clean stations and paint areas that are not reachable during normal train operation."

Originally, the shutdowns were only supposed to take place in Manhattan, and only this year, for a total of 16 weeks of inconvenience. But already the NY MTA has declared it a success because of how much maintenance is getting done. And now spokesman Kevin Ortiz says Fast Track will continue into next year, when it will expand to lines in the outer boroughs and possibly the N, Q and R trains along Broadway in Manhattan.

Fast Track continues this week with the suspension of the B,D,F and M lines between 57th and West 4th Streets, starting Monday night

Photo by Roadsidepictures / Flckr creative commons

(New York, NY) Subway and bus ads are the latest battleground between Mayor Michael Bloomberg's health department and soda makers. The newly formed New York City Beverage Association is taking a huge mass transit ad buy as part of a $1 million campaign to rebut the city's claim that soda is unhealthy.

For months, the city has been running public service announcements linking sugary drinks to mountains of fat and waterfalls of sugar, including a graphic video that claims drinking a can of soda a day can add ten pounds in a year by showing a man pouring fat out of a can of soda and drinking it.

Health Department Commissioner Thomas Farley elaborated on those objections in a statement to Transportation Nation: “Americans are literally drinking themselves fat, consuming 200-300 more calories daily than 30 years ago, with the largest single increase due to sugary drinks."

Farley also defended the city's anti-soda campaign in light of the association’s public relations offensive. "The Health Department will continue providing New Yorkers with the facts about the dangers of this overconsumption.”

The Beverage Association is fighting back with ads of its own on 570 subway cars, 75 buses and 120 subway platforms. The ads claim soda makers are fighting obesity and other health risks by offering low-cal drinks, smaller serving sizes and clearly displayed calorie counts.

Despite the timing of the ad campaign, association spokesman Stefan Friedman insisted his industry isn't quarreling with the health department.

"Look, we face some issues with the city but it's important for us to tell our story," he said. "All evidence is clear that the obesity epidemic comes from a number of different sources. Sugar-sweetened beverages comprise just 5 percent of the American diet."

Friedman added the beverage industry directly employs more than 8,000 New Yorkers and contributes $1.5 billion dollars to the local economy.

The MTA's Fastrack program, which shuts down large portions of subway lines overnight, isn't just for Manhattan any more. The pilot program will be expanded to the outer boroughs - possibly to the chagrin of late night riders.

Subway and bus ads are the battleground between Mayor Michael Bloomberg's health department and soda makers. The newly formed New York City Beverage Association is taking a huge mass transit ad buy as part of a $1 million campaign to rebut the city's claim that soda is unhealthy.

More than a third of all long subway delays are caused signal problems, according to an analysis of 3,000 text alerts sent by the NY MTA last year.

Side view of an old school NYC subway signal. (Photo by mementosis / Flckr creative commons)

(New York, NY - WNYC) More than a third of all long subway delays are caused signal problems, according to an analysis  of 3,000 text alerts sent by the NY MTA last year by the Straphangers Campaign.

The report tallied "significant incidents that often generated subway delays" of 8 minutes or more and found signal problems caused 36 percent of such delays, followed by mechanical problems at 31 percent. Rail and track problems caused a combined 19 percent of long delays.

Straphangers spokesman Gene Russianoff said he's not surprised, given what he saw of the signals at one location. "The MTA took us on a tour of the West 4th Street Station, where 7 lines and hundreds of thousands of riders go through every day and we went to the dispatcher's office where the signals are kept and they were built in 1932 and looked like the controls on the deck of His Royal Majesty's ship, the Titanic," he said.

The report only looked at delays in the control of the MTA and not incidents such as police actions and sick passengers. The lines with the most delays were the 2 and 5 trains, which each had 8 percent of total delays. The line with the fewest delays was the G, which connects Brooklyn and Queens and is the only line that does not go into Manhattan.

Manhattan had the most delays at 43 percent. The Bronx had the fewest with 11 percent.

The MTA said it is upgrading signals, tracks and subway cars as part of its capital construction program. The authority launched its free text alert system in November 2008; it has more than 76,000 subscribers.

The Straphangers Campaign is a public interest research group that advocates for improvements in mass transit.

Long Island Railroad riders might not see service to Grand Central Terminal on the East Side of Manhattan until 2019, a year later than expected.

(New York, NY - WNYC) Long Island Railroad riders might not see service to Grand Central Terminal on the East Side of Manhattan until 2019, a year later than expected.

Joe Lhota, chairman of the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told business leaders on Long Island that the tunnel project has bogged down beneath a railyard in Sunnyside, Queens, where contaminated soil and an unexpected abundance of underground brooks and springs have slowed digging. He said the authority has brought in tunneling experts from Europe to help solve the problems.

The project, called East Side Access, will bring Long Island Railroad trains beneath the East River to Grand Central Terminal. Now, all LIRR trains go to Penn Station, on Manhattan's West Side.

Lhota called East Side Access the first major expansion of the LIRR in 100 years. He said that, on completion, it would shave about 40 minutes off commuting time for Long Islanders who work on the East Side of Manhattan and would increase capacity of the railroad by 41 percent.

“There are 800,000 people per day that go through Penn Station,” Lhota said, according to Long Island Business News. “And 60 percent of those are Long Island Rail Road riders. East Side Access should relieve a lot of that burden.”

The project, which was originally scheduled for completion in 2015, has been delayed several times. (The NY MTA's website still lists an obsolete end date of 2016.)

NY MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg later walked back Lhota's remarks. He said, "Chairman Joe Lhota did say this morning that a very preliminary study that he saw has a risk of the deadline going into 2019. We’re in the process of re-evaluating the deadline on East Side Access and will report to the board on it at the end of May."

Lisberg said NY MTA engineers are looking at "several different types of studies" to determine whether to stick with or push back the current 2018 deadline. "It’s complex tech stuff and the experts don’t always agree," he said.

The NY MTA has said previous delays were caused in part by conflicts with Amtrak, which is also working on construction projects at the Sunnyside Railyards in Queens, slowing digging for East Side Access. Lisberg said those problems have been solved. "In January, at one of our meetings, there was discussion of problems with scheduling work in coordination with Amtrak," he said." Now we’re very well coordinated."

And now comes this statement from the MTA press office:

Slide showing the location of several planned bike share docks in Lower Manhattan. (Photo by Jim O'Grady)

(New York, NY - WNYC) The New York City Department of Transportation continues to show community boards in Brooklyn and Manhattan where it's planning to install Bike Share stations in those boroughs.

NOTE: WE'VE TURNED THIS INTO AN INTERACTIVE MAP, VIEW IT HERE.

NYC DOT has promised to post a map of the entire system online once it's done. But the department is sticking by its refusal to release the draft maps, though it's supposed to have the actual program up in running by mid-July, a mere 10 weeks from now.

There is a way to glimpse what the city has in mind, and that's to go to a community board meeting and sit through the department's presentation of bike share locations. Hence our presence, with cell phone camera, at Thursday night's meeting of Community Board 1's Planning and Infrastructure Committee.

We photographed five slides, like the one above, that show where the bike share docks would go around Lower Manhattan. By our count, CB 1 will hold 42 of them.

The locations were whittled down through a series of meetings with department staff and community board members. Kate Fillin-Yeh, director of New York City Bikeshare, said any proposed location that had been red-flagged in a previous meeting did not make the cut.

Of the 42 that remain, twelve would require the removal of parking spaces--"three or four" per location, according to Fillin-Yeh. The stations would also be installed on street sites not used for parking, sidewalks, parks and plazas, and private property.

She said the department tried to spread the the bike docks evenly throughout Lower Manhattan, and place them near subway stations, large institutions like New York Law School, and tourist sites like south Street Seaport and the boat to the Statue of Liberty.

Board members reacted positively to the plan, with some praising the DOT for the way it has run its consultation with the community. The plan will be presented to the full board in the coming weeks.

The Tappan Zee Bridge spanning, on the day of this photo, a serene Hudson River. (Flckr / duluoz cats)

(New York, NY - WNYC) In the Q & A after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the members of a new state Infrastructure Bank Board, he talked today about how the state might pay to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge after the federal government did not grant a $2 billion loan application.

(Ray LaHood wrote about the projects that did get the funding here.)

The proposed $5.2 billion project is a high priority for Cuomo.  It would build two spans to replace an aging, overcrowded bridge across the Hudson River in New York City's northern suburbs.

Environmental and transportation groups have criticized the replacement bridge's design because it makes no provision for transit.  Some opponents have suggested Cuomo's  vehicles-only approach contributed to the project's failure to win federal transportation funding.

But Cuomo downplayed the decision by the Obama administration not to grant a loan on April 26.   Cuomo said he's considering public-private partnerships that could leverage private financing, but he has no proposal at this time.

Here's an excerpt of the Q & A:

Q: Was it disappointing to not get the federal transportation loan for the Tappan Zee Bridge? Also, any progress on the next steps in terms of funding?

Cuomo: I believe the federal transportation funds will be reauthorized and I believe we will be competitive. Howard, anything new on the Tappan Zee financing?

Director of State Operations Howard Glaser: We’re doing many things simultaneously: the environmental review, the financial plans, working out labor agreements. So you’ll continue to see that work being done over the next few months.

Q: Do you need public-private partnership legislation to fund the bridge?

Cuomo: We’re talking about public-private partnership legislation. We don’t have an immediate proposal on that.

[Cuomo then talked about the various political obstacles to the project, and the need to overcome them to show that the state can still think and build big.]

[We're battling] inertia and institutional opposition—just bureaucratic opposition: opposition of the system, opposition to change, opposition to risk, which is very real and one of the main challenges you’re going to face.

The Tappan Zee Bridge is a project that has been talked about for decades, literally. The Tappan Zee Bridge--and there’s a project called the Peace Bridge in Buffalo--are large scale public works projects that have been talked about for decades but have somehow defied progress, let alone completion. That is one of those cultural enemies, I think, to progress. This sense that big projects are just too difficult to tackle.

Building a bridge: it’s controversial, it’s complex, there’s going to be opposition and [the idea that] if there’s opposition, we should stop. We’re trying to do the exact opposite with the Tappan Zee. We’re trying to say, ‘When there is a pressing need, government should be able to respond quickly, expeditiously, efficiently. Hear everyone, fair process, due process…but then get it done. Get it done.’

Government was about functioning [during the tenure of former NY State Governor] Al Smith. Government was about functioning and performing, competently, quickly. So the Tappan Zee Bridge, which we’ll be involved in, is a project that we identified early on, that is not just going to be about repairing that bridge. But it’s going to be about making the statement that government can work and society can work and we can still do big things. We’re that good. So keeping the Tappan Zee on time and moving along is very important to us.

Q: The biggest roadblock seems to be how to pay for it.

Cuomo: We’re working through a number of financing options and we’ll present a number of options for discussion and we’ll pick the best one.

Q: Will you be passing legislation during this session to allow you to raise public-private money for the Tappan Zee Bridge? Would it have to go through legislation?

Cuomo: It would not have to go through legislation. No.

(Photo by Flckr / frugg)

(New York, NY - WNYC) Seven people died Sunday when an SUV hit a curb on a stretch of the Bronx River Parkway and vaulted over a guardrail into a ravine on land owned by The Bronx Zoo. Several cars have had similar crashes there in recent years. Now state transportation officials are taking steps to make the road safer.

They're installing a line of concrete barriers that are 2 feet eight-inches tall between the right lane of traffic and the curb. The idea is that if an SUV hits the center divider and swerves sharply right across three lanes, as happened Sunday, it's supposed to hit the barrier and stay on the road rather than hitting the curb and getting propelled over the guardrail.

But another issue is how fast drivers take that stretch of road. The SUV was speeding through the 50 mile per hour zone at 68 miles per hour. New York State DOT spokesman William Reynolds said the speed limit will drop to 35 miles per hour during construction and may remain lower than 50 mph when the project is done--which he expects will be by the end of next week. He didn't know how much the improvements would cost the state DOT.

He also said police will be strictly enforcing the new lower speed limit around the raised parts of the parkway. "We believe the corridor is safe as long as you travel at the appropriate speed," he said.

TOP STORIES ON TN:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says that where a federal program has added bike lanes, biking is up 50%. (link)
Occupy shuts down Golden Gate Ferry. (link)
The Metro Dulles rail project known as the Silver Line may be in jeopardy over a labor pay dispute. (link)
In Florida, an aging population struggles to get around. (link)
Bus Rapid Transit gets an international rating system. (link)
Chicago residents get a look at 2020 bike network. (link)

This silver man from the future is beating a traffic jam by switching from a traditional car to a zippy three-wheeled vehicle.

House Republicans are demanding a long-term federal highway funding bill be funded in part with oil royalty money from opening up parts of Alaska and perhaps offshore areas to drilling. (Wall Street Journal)

A Society of Engineers report says drivers' failure to use turn signals is an "epidemic" that causes almost a million crashes per year.  (Autoblog)

A San Francisco transit worker was fired on his 66th birthday for giving a needy teenager free BART tickets to get to school. (San Francisco Chronicle)

You'd think The Sierra Club of Georgia would join transit advocates in supporting a referendum on imposing a 1 percent sales tax for regional transpo projects. Think again. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

The Silver Spring transit hub in Maryland would serve 100,000 people a day and bring together buses, Metro rail and MARC trains. But it is snakebit: delayed seven times, its cost has now jumped by another $11 million. (The Washington Post)

In congested parts of China and Japan, people are buying cars that carry two and three-wheeled vehicles. It's called dual mode transport and it's becoming all the rage. (Gizmag, nifty video)

Did last year's Carmaggedon in L.A. cause local heteros to stay home, crank up the Barry White and make babies? Some couples say, "yes." (babble)

In a new book, investigative journalist Steve Coll calls ExxonMobil a "private empire." (Marketplace)

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Junior (Photo by Matthew Schuerman - WNYC)

(New York, NY - WNYC) Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Junior is calling for a thorough safety inspection of the overpass on the stretch of the Bronx River Parkway in NYC where a crash killed seven on Sunday.

Three generations of the same family, including three kids, were killed on Sunday when an SUV leapt a guardrail on the Parkway and plunged into a ravine in the Bronx Zoo below.

Several accidents have occurred on that stretch of parkway, including one last summer in which two were injured, and another fatal crash in 2006.

Diaz wants the investigation to include the parkway’s guardrails. He also stressed that the road surface should be better maintained.

"Why is it if the rest if the parkway is always smooth, in the elevated portions there's always potholes," he asked. "There are joiners in the elevated section and it's always a problem to get over them, there's always something wrong with the roadway."

A spokesman for the American Automobile Association's New York City affiliate also expressed concerns about a number of issues on the parkway, such as narrow lanes, steep hills, tight turns, no breakdown lane and inadequate guardrais.

AAA’s Robert Sinclair said the Bronx River Parkway was opened in 1925 and lacks modern engineering features.

William P. Reynolds, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Transportation,  said an investigation is ongoing. "We are working closely with all agencies involved to determine the cause of this tragic accident," he said.

The NYPD said at a briefing Monday that Maria Gonzalez was driving at 68 m.p.h.when she bumped the concrete highway divider and damaged a tire. Police say she was likely going with the flow of traffic, which is often faster than the posted 50 miles per hour speed limit.

The city medical examiner said all seven passengers died of blunt force trauma to the head. The deaths have been ruled accidental. Toxicology reports won't be ready for several weeks.

Diaz said Juan Gonzalez, husband of the woman who was driving the SUV and father of one of the girls in the vehicle was, “devastated.”

"He's distraught." Diaz said of Gonzalez. "In the Bronx and as New Yorkers, we are crying and mourning for this family. Three generations is really tough to lose and we should make sure that this never happens again."

Relatives said they're wracked with grief and shock. A wake is planned for Thursday.

With the Associated Press

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Junior is calling for a thorough safety inspection of the overpass on a stretch of the Bronx River Parkway where a crash killed seven on Sunday.