New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday announced a technology modernization program for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates New York City's subway system, two commuter rail lines and several bridges and tunnels.
Speaking at the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn and flanked by MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast, Cuomo called for expanded Wi-Fi hotspots, accelerating mobile payments and ticketing to replace the MetroCard, and providing USB ports on subway trains, buses and in stations to allow customers to charge their mobile devices.
"We are modernizing the MTA like never before and improving it for years to come," said Cuomo, without revealing a price tag.
Prendergast said the MTA's commitment to lower-cost procurement methods such as public-private partnerships, to which it agreed over the summer during back-and-forth over the authority's five-year, $29 billion capital program, will help accelerate the process.
More than 6 million people ride the New York City century-old subway system daily.
The MTA, said Cuomo, will revamp the design guidelines for
Similar improvements will come to the Richmond Valley station on the Staten Island Railway, and the new Arthur Kill station opening later this year will also feature many of these elements, MTA officials said. These new processes and innovations will inform future improvements to stations on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad as well. Work on the majority of these 30 stations will be completed by 2018, and all will be finished by 2020, with timeframe for redevelopments from start to finish being reduced by more than 50%. On average, station redevelopments are expected to take between six and 12 months.
Comparatively, under the previous piecemeal approach, station redevelopments relying on night and weekend closures could take two to three years or more to be completed. The governor's proposal also accelerates the process of bringing mobile payment methods to subways and buses, allowing riders to pay their fares by waving a cellphone, a bank card or another payment device over contactless readers. This, said Cuomo, will enable customers to board buses and pass through turnstiles more quickly, as well as manage the value in their accounts online instead of on physical cards that can be lost or damaged.
He also called for cellphone service at every underground station by early next year.
Subways and buses will start using contactless payment methods in 2018, he said. The MTA will begin offering mobile ticketing on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad within six months and fully introduce it by the end of the year, giving railroad customers the same ability to buy tickets on their mobile devices.
Cuomo's buzzing week of infrastructure initiatives included Wednesday's call for a new Penn Station in midtown Manhattan, a third set of tracks on the Long Island Rail Road main line, and a study of a tunnel to link Long Island with Westchester County, N.Y., or Connecticut. On Thursday, he announced a $1 billion plan to enlarge the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan's West Side by 1.2 million square feet.
