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Nolan Hicks Profile picture
Nolan Hicks
@ndhapple
Investigations at @streetsblognyc. Examining railroad modernization @nyumarron. Prev: @NYMag, NYP-Metro, NYDN. DMs confidential. 🤘. 🏳️‍🌈. Bsky: @ndhapple
May 18, 2024 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
MTA nixes OMNY from the commuter railroads, basically ending the dream of one fare system to rule them all. Says there's no way it would be ready in time. Instead, it will buy a replacement system from Masabi.

Huge lesson in the importance of scoping before launching. Image OMNY was thought of first and foremost as the NYCT payment system (where it launched first), but the hope was that OMNY would be so flexible, they could move everyone onto it — PATH, AirTrain, and most complicatedly, its own railroads. BUT...
May 20, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Good grief. Find you a state government that hates its capital as much as the elected leaders in Austin hate Austin. So much so, they've decided voters in Austin can't approve a tax to fund a municipal-owned corporation to build and operate a transit system.
May 19, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The LIRR's says it's eying September for its next round of major schedule tweaks, post ESA launching. Coincidentally (or not), that's when the railroad says it finally hopes to have all of its M9s.

The IEC says not-so-fast. ImageImage Meanwhile, the M9A RFP is apparently been stashed in whatever warehouse they hid Cuomo's LED bulbs in -- politico.com/news/2021/08/0…
May 17, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Has anyone in New Jersey thought through what might happen if New York decided to try to nix every toll increase? Or to claw back all the money that was diverted from ARC for the Pulaski Skyway? Does this mean New York gets to veto NJTransit fare hikes? Can New Jersey object to MTA fare increases?

Whatever the merits of congestion pricing (and I get why folks might be grumpy), this was a law approved by New York state lawmakers to be implemented by a state agency.
May 16, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Appears to be identical to the model used by the SNCF at some of the major Paris rail hubs. Someone on Reddit beat me to pointing this out. But on the SNCF, they estimated the new design would halve fare evasion (which looks very much like this one) -- sncf.com/sites/default/…
May 15, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Maybe people really do just enjoy getting yelled at for hours on end. Strange kink, but ok America
Feb 7, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Blistering new assessment of how the MTA builds transit projects reveals agency spent nearly twice as much on consultants on the Second Avenue Subway as it did boring the actual tunnel from 63rd to 96th — nypost.com/2023/02/06/mta… The assessment says that MTA has next to zero in-house engineering and design capacity or oversight ability, leaving it at the mercy of outside firms that have little incentive to stay in budget or on time. Projects, to borrow from writing, lose the plot — nypost.com/2023/02/06/mta…
Feb 6, 2023 • 34 tweets • 5 min read
The MTA’s budget hearing is about to get underway. "We're in dire need of new funding and a new funding model," Lieber tells lawmakers, highlighting the $2-3 billion shortfalls facing the agency.

Unmentioned is that even before the pandemic hit, the MTA was facing perennial $1 billion shortfalls.
Nov 9, 2022 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
I'm tired, this won't be well organized.

But I think there are three overarching themes to last night's election here in New York:
- Eye-popping GOP turnout
- Comparatively dismal Democratic turnout
- More evidence of fractures in the Democratic coalition An important caveat, there is still a sizeable number of absentee votes still outstanding that will shift these percentages a smidge, but thematically this won't/shouldn't move much.
Nov 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The PA is on NY1 right now offering his thoughts about what the Democrats did wrong. Arguing the Democrats didn't lean hard enough into the left's 'vision' which is why Zeldin got close? Which is quite a read.
Nov 9, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
CAVEATS ABOUND, but:
- Turnout in NYC looks like it'll come out between 90-95% of 2018
- Turnout in Nassau looks like it'll be about 105-110% of 2018

So, if 2018 is the year:
- That contest saw 6.2m votes cast.
- Dems rolled out of NYC with a 1.4m vote edge So far this cycle:
- Looks like the Democratic edge out of New York City will be between 700k-800k
- GOP lost 2018 by 1.4 million votes.
- That would mean Zeldin needs to find ~800-900k GOP votes beyond Molinaro.
Nov 9, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Kathy Hochul takes 75% of the early and absent vote in NYC.

It's gonna be a tough hill for Zeldin to climb, 26% of scanners in and Hochul's percentage has dipped to 72%.
Nov 8, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
+289,558; averaged 96k/hr between 3pm and 6pm. New York City looks like it's going to get within spitting distance of its 2018 number, too.

NYC did 2m in 2018. We're looking at 1.8m pretty easily at this point -- and could go higher.

This tally includes the 111k absentees returned as of Monday. That's gone up too.
Nov 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
That would be in addition to 123k early votes and ~50k absentee ballots mailed out. Assuming Nassua continues to turn out at roughly the same hourly rate between 330 and polls closing -- that bring would ED turnout to 357k.

Total votes cast to ~530k

That's 71% of 2020's turnout.
That's ~104% of 2018's turnout.
Nov 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
+244,256, or about 70k/hr. If you're a Democrat, you want that number to get as close to 2m as possible.
Nov 8, 2022 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Go vote New York! — findmypollsite.vote.nyc The endorsements:
- The Times backs Gov. Hochul: nytimes.com/2022/10/22/opi…

And they made their interviews with both candidates available.
- Hochul: nytimes.com/2022/10/22/opi…
- Zeldin: nytimes.com/2022/10/22/opi…
Nov 7, 2022 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
Maya Wiley at the Tish James GOTV rally in Flatbush And Brooklyn County chairwoman Assm. Rodneyse Bichotte
Nov 6, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
+86k today It looks like the Dems breaking the alarm glass did have an effect.

NYC's Day 9 cumulative total revs up to 38.6% of 2020's performance.
- That's a 5% point jump from Day 7, when NYC was tracking at 33.7% of cumulative EV turnout
- And a 3% jump from Day 8, which hit 35.4%
Nov 5, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
That’s +62k today. - Running at 35% of early voting in the 2020 general election (Day 8 was 977,763)
- Running at ~220% of early voting during the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary (Day 8 was 155,630)
Nov 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Jose's great story covers a lot of ground -- but doesn't get to the expansion projects which would also be imperiled: Extending the Second Ave Subway to Harlem/125th; the Brooklyn-Queens rail link, which would be the first major outerborough rail expansion in 40-plus years. Zeldin stopped by City Hall for a press conference in September, where I tried to press him on the issue of the MTA and its finances considering his vocal opposition to congestion pricing: nypost.com/2022/09/12/zel…
Oct 19, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
SCOOP: The city's economic development agency, EDC, gave rent breaks worth at least $1.4 million to its helipad operators during the pandemic, as austerity measures slashed trash pickup -- nypost.com/2022/10/19/nyc… The tally only includes the deal provided to the Seaport helipad operator, which had to disclose them in a filing with federal regulators. It runs the Seaport helipad.

EDC refused to provide any details about what it gave to the company that operates the E34th St helipad.