ALL THE STOBS

---文章选自美国时代周刊杂志

After taking on New

York Citys Crumbling

subway systemAndy Byford is back home in the U.K.

with an even a bigger mission: saving London's transitnet work from post pandemic collapseand convincing the world not to give upon public transport BY  CIARA NUGENT/LONDON

  ANDY BYFORD WASFEELING GUILTY

It was March 2020, and he had just left his job as head of theNew York City Transit Authority,  after Governor Andrew Cuomomoved him off a massive revamp of the ailing subways. Stuckin his English hometown of  Plymouth because of pandemictravel restrictions,  he sat feeling "frustrated and impotent" asCOVID-19 decimated ridership and revenues in publictransitinNew York and  around the world. "Had I known the full horror ofwhat was to emerge," Byford, 55, says grimly,  "I would haveputmy resignation on hold and stayed to see New York City transitthrough the crisis." He even reached out  to the chairmanoftheMetropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and offered tocome back, he says.

But Byford, one of the world's most respectedtransportleaders,  didn't have to go back across the pond to find atransitsystem that needed his help. In June 2020,  he took over as commissioner of Transport for London (TfL),  the agency responsiblefor the city's public transit. On a chilly mid-December afternoon,  a 3 p.m. sunset already dulling the blue over the Britishapital's skyline,  Byford sitsstraight-backed inaglass-paneledmeeting room at TfL's headquarters and lays out the "sobering"state of the  system. TfL's sprawling network of undergroundor "tube" trains-the world's oldest-lost 95% of its passengers in the  firstlockdown of spring 2020, and buses, boats andoverground trains fared little better,  Data on the content of the data in this file is scarce. The data on the content of the data in this file is scarce  ofrestrictions, tuberidership never climbed above 35% of 2019 levels.

The pandemic has notonly caused an immediate fall in ticketrevenues for the world's public transit networks-rail  ridershipin Barcelona, Moscow,  Beijing and New York City at times plummeting 80%-in some cities it also has thrown into questionthe future of mass  urban transportation. Like the sleek 11-storybuilding where Byford was one of a handful of employees notworking from  home this winter,  offices from San Francisco toHong Kong sit mostly empty. Major companies contemplate ashift to remote work,  and city residents consider moves out ofthe crowded,  polluted urban centers that have made lockdownsmore unpleasant. Fears of sharing confined spaces with strangers have  fueled soaring demand for used cars in Mexico,  Indiaand Europe. A U.K. survey found attitudes toward public transit had been set back by two decades,  with only 43% of drivers open to using their car less, even if public transport improves.

The implications reach beyond By ford's industry. If people move from mass transit to cars,  government targets on reducing emissions to fight climate change will move out of reach.

Low-income communities and essentialworkers will be stuck with poorly funded or bankrupt systems as the wealthy move in  cars or stay home. Economies will slow as it becomes more difficult for workers,consumers and businesses to reach  one an other. "Transportation policy is climate policy, economic policy and equity policy," says Janette Sadik-Khan,  who served as commissioner ofthe New York City Department ofTransportation under MayorMichael Bloomberg.  "Restoringtransit tofull strength and investing in its futurehas to be viewed with the same urgencyas restoring water or  power lines after anational natural disaster."

Byford is trying to persuade the U.K.

to do just that. His relentless chippernessand nerdish fascination with intervals between train arrivals belie his  success as a shrewd political negotiator. Resisting what he calls "the unsophisticated kneejerk reaction" of service cuts,  He hashelped secure more than £3 billion infunding packages to keep TfL running.

But he says ensuring cities have thetransit systems they need in five yearsrequires more than just stopgap  crisissolutions. Byford is pushing for newinnovations during the pandemic,  an overhaulofTfL's funding model and alonger-termmultibillion-dollar government-supportdeal. "My message to our leaders  is:Don't see transit as part of the problem,"he says. "It's part of the pathway out o fthe pandemic." If he can set  London onthat path, he'll give city leaders aroundthe world a road map to follow.

AS A TEENAGER growing up in Plymouth, a coastal city home to the largestnaval base in Western Europe, By ford had thought he mightjoin the navy. In the end, after leaving university, he brought hisefficiency and leadership skills straight to TfL, working as a tube-station foreman.

It was something of a family business: his father had worked there, and his grandfather had driven a bus for 40 years, including through the Blitz when German bombs pounded London in World War II.

But he was mostly drawn, he says earnestly, by "the buzz of operations, never knowing what the next day will bring" and "a passion for customer service."

Byford sees himself as "naturally gregarious." That quality-exercised in regular trips around TfL's network to meet Londoners-has powered him through a career in the often thankless task of being the face ofcitytransit systems. After leaving TfL and working on England's railways in the 20oos, he took over the trains in Sydney. He speaks cornily about fostering

"team spirit" and his love of going for a pint with colleagues on a Friday, prepandemic. But he doesn't suffer fools. While overhaulingToronto's failing transport commission from 2012 to 2017 he fred the manager of a line-extension project that had dragged ontoolongand replaced the team himself. At the MTA, he became known for his hands-on attitude, earning the nicknameTrain Daddy among fans and on social media. Though Byford cut his time in New York short, leaving his "Fast Forward" plan to remake subway signaling, bus routes and station access in his successor's hands,transit experts hailed him for putting apreviously hopeless system on the right path. "Andy's attitude .My mess and his messaging were great, certainly refreshing for our political atmosphere;  it transit as was almost more than problem.we deserve," Sadik Khan says. "He really restored New Yorkers' confidence in transit.And that's a tough hill to climb.”

By ford's tenure in London is off to a lessglamorous start. He contrasts his arrival at TfLlast summer with his first day in New York City in  2018, when he was swarmed by a crowd of reporters at Manhattan's Bowling Green station, excited to meet the Brit who had come to fix the subways In pandemic London, there was no welcoming committee. "I just sort of wan dered in and told reception who I was," he says. A gigantic flag that he had commissioned for his MTA office, celebrating his hometown soccer team Plymouth Argyle, now hangs slightly cramped in a small side room at TfL.

But the scale of his task in London, overseeing 9.ooo buses and 250 miles of underground tracks as well as overground rail, cycling, taxis, boats, roads, bridges and tunnels across London's 6oo sq. mi., dwarfs his previous jobs. He must also grapple with TL's unique vulnerability to falls in ridership, which on the underground last year reached its lowest level since the 1gth century. The network relies on ticket revenue for 72% ofits operating income, far higher than the 30%-to-50% norm in major Western transit systems.

The rest of TfL's cash flow comes mostly from road-compliance charges, such as a congestion charge on cars, commercial activities like renting out properties, city taxes and local government grants.

Prepan demic, TfL hadn't received U.K.

government funding for operations since 2018, By ford points out proudly.

Some cities have responded to the loss

of passengers with service cuts, including Paris, where authorities cut metro and train service by 10% on most lines this March. In New York, the MTA cut service on two lines by 20% last spring but the agency has avoided the swinging 40% to 50% service cuts it warned of in late 2020,thanks to federal relief funds. In London,TfL has maintained near normal service throughout the pandemic. By ford say she's determined to resist "the siren voices that say we should mothball lines, defer main ten ance, get ridof capacity in order to achieve a short-term financial objective. Cutting service leads to just a downward spiral That downward spiral is well documented in cities like Washington, D.C.,where deferred maintenance and under investment in the 2ooos have led to long safety shutdowns. When service becomes more  irregular, people who canafford the expense will increasingly drive, take cabsor stop traveling in the city altogether.

Ridership continues to fall, so revenuefalls,  and service and maintenance are cut further. "You end up creating a kind of transit underclass of people who have noot her  option and are still dependent on alower-quality offering,"says Yingling Fan,

aprofessor of urbanandregional; planning

at the University of Minnesota. "Mass transit only works if it has the mass."

Keeping the "mass"right now requires support. Byford and Mayor Sadiq Khannegotiated bailouts of F1.6 billion in May and £1.8 billion in October. The dealshad to overcome strained relationship between The mayor, who is part of the opposition Labour Party, and the right wing Conservative government,  which has pledged to prioritize other regionsin the pandemic recovery. In exchange,Khan agreed to raise city taxes and  Make £160 million worth of cuts to TfL, mostlyin the back office. Two long-term rail expansion projects have been mothballed.

But By ford prevented two threatenedcuts that he says epitomized the shortterm thinking that kills public transit:first,  planned signaling updates for the busy Piccadilly line that runs all the way from Heath row Airport to Piccadilly Circus and  beyond;  second, the Elizabeth line. The largest rail project in Europe, it will connect eastern and western towns with Cenus an opptral London, adding a full 10% to the net reconsider work's capacity. De curb spacelayed from its original 2018 completion to the date, and with some £18 pull in already of pespent, the line narrowly avoided being private shelved in November which c after the U.K. government refused to pro BRIAN Vide a final £1.1billion TfL asked for to Complete the project. The city agreed to take £825 million as a loan and find away to deliver the line with that. Byford promises "no more slippage" on the new opening date of 2022.

Byford is now negotiating with the government on his demand for E3 billion to cover operating costs in 2021 and 2022,and a Further £1.6 billion a year until 2030to allow TfL to reduce its dependence on fares by growing other revenue streams,like its housing division,  and make long term improvements. He argues that TfLis an essential motor of the green recovery that Prime Minister  BorisJohnson has promised. For example, Byford wants to"expedite" the electrification of London's massive bus fleet,  which might compelmanufacturers to set up a production line Most urgently,  the money is needed to keep the city that provides 23% of U.K.

GDP moving. In New York,  a study by the NYU Rudin Center found that steep MTA cuts would trigger an annual GDP loss of up to $65 billion.

"You can 't just

turn public transport on at the drop of ahat," Byford says,  citing the need for continued maintenance and on goingscalingup of capacity. "You've got to keep planning,  you've got to keep asking: What will the city's needs be in the future?"

The pandemic has made that question much harder to answer. London's population is set to decline in 2021 for the first  time in three decades, losing up to300,000 of its 9 million people,  according to a January report by accountancy firm PwC. It's too soon to say if that's the start of a long-term post pandemic  trend. But even if the population remains stable, a mass shift to home work, predicted by some, would have "enormous implications for the future of public transit use," says Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. "because transit's ability to move a lot of people in the same direction at the same time is its [big advantage over] cars.

And a long-term

shift from transit to car use in densely packed cities would cause major headaches for city leaders.

In New York City, where the number of newly registered vehicles from August to October was 37% higher than in the same period in 2019 across four of the five  boroughs, residents compare the fight for parking spaces to The Hunger Games.

Byford rejects the idea

"that mass

travel to offices is a thing of the past,  or that Central London is going to becomes ome sort of tourist attraction preserved in aspic." In a "realistic" scenario,  he expects TfL ridership to recover to 80% of2019 levels in the medium term. That stilladds up to around f1 billion a  yearin lost revenue, he says,  meaning TfL will have to restructure to make savings and potentially redesign bus routes and some service frequency based  on how peopleare using the city. "But there's still a lot of things we can do, in public policy and in TfL,  to convince people not to get back in their cars," he says. "My job is to make public transport the irresistible option."

THE CRISIS FACING public transit over the next few years poses a grim threat to cities,  at least in the short term. But city leaders also see hope for the long termin the global reckoning with the statusquo  that the disruption of COVID-19 hastriggered. Many are considering how to use the lessons of this time to  positivelyreshape cities for the post pandemic era.

And the loser is cars. From Berlin to Oakland, Calif., roads have been blocked to create miles of new cycle paths,  sidewalkshave been widened and new plazas created. The "renaissance of innovation" that has occurred over the past year  will accelerate cities' transition to a more sustainable, low-emissions way of life, says Sadik-Khan,  whose tenure in New York City was marked by the creation of hundreds of miles of bike lanes.

In London, as well as widened sidewalks and the creation of new low traffic neighborhoods,  By ford and Khanare making it increasingly expensive to drive in London. Since its introduction in 2003,  the city's congestion charge, a daily levy on cars driving in the city center,  has helped cut congestion there by a quarter in three years, and,  with support from both right- and left-wing local governments,  it has become a model for cities wary of the political risk of upsetting drivers. In June,  the city increased the daily charge to $21, from $16, and expanded its hours of operation, for now on a temporary basis. In October,  the"ultra-low emissions zone," which since2019 has charged more polluting vehicles $17 a day in Central London,  will expand to cover a much larger area. And Mayor Khan is considering a new toll ford rivers who come in from outside  the city. For By ford, who has never owned a car,  it's promising. "The mayor's goal has always been to increase the percentage of people using public transit,  walking or cycling to 80% by 2041," he says. "Before, that was seen as ambitious. I think we can definitely do that now."

The post pandemic moment could potentially be a turning point. "Many arearguing this pause could give us an opportunity to  reallocate street space,  to reconsider how much curbs pace we devote to the storage of people's private property,which cars are," says Taylor.  If cities manage to improve public transitand phase out car use on their streets,  in a few years they won't just have less pollution and lower greenhouse-gas emissions. Streets will be safer and more  pleasant to walk through,increasing footfall for retail and hospitality sectors. Businesses will have more flexibility to  set up stalls or outdoor seating.

Curbs can be redesigned to be more accessible for the disabled. It all depends on the decisions city leaders take now to  "intelligently manage automobiles"and protect public transit, Taylor says.

It may be hard to knock the car off it spedestal in the U.S. Many of its cities were designed around the automobile,  and analysts say U.S.policymakers tend to treat public transit as part of the welfare system,  rather than as an essential utility as it is considered in Europe and Asia. Afterthe2008 recession,  U.S. transit agencies were forced to make cuts so deep that some had not recovered before the pandemic.

But transit ieaders see some signs of the political suportt ransit needs to survive and thrive. On Feb. 8,  the U.S. Congress approved an additional $30 billion for public transit agencies,  softening the blow from the $39 billion shortfall predicted by the American Public Transportation Association. And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whos pearheaded controversial initiatives to reduce car use as mayor of South Bend,Ind.,  told his Senate confirmation hearing that the current moment offers a"generational opportunity to transform and improve  America's infrastructure."

Global transport is under goingatrans formation,  despite the pressures of the pandemic. The market for low-emission selectric buses is thriving,  With cities from Bogota to Delhi ordering hundreds of units over the past year. The Transitagencies, o TfL, are partnering with delivery companies to make the "last mile" of trips more efficient. Meanwhile,  urban planning concepts like the "15-MinuteCity," championed by Paris Mayor An neHidalgo,  are scaling back the need for long commutes and unnecessary journeys,Fast Forward, Byford's attempt to transform New York City's transit,  is"somewhat on hold at the moment,"he says. But he urges his former colleagues not to allow the pandemic to wipe out  their ambition. "That plan will ultimately serve New York well, and it should not be left on the shelf," he says.

Byford is unlikely to return any time soon,  though. He says he doesn't miss the complexity of being answerable to both city and state governments,  and he loves working with a "very enlightened"mayor in Khan. Pointedly omitting leadership in New York,  he adds that he also had "excellent relationships" with two successive mayors in Toronto,  the premier of Ontario and the minister of transport in New South Wales.

Hard as it may be for some New Yorkers to believe, what Byford does miss about his old job these days,  as he roamsTfL's quiet trains to monitor the network,is riding the subway. "It's like a different world underground,  he says,  recalling theentertainers and "the kaleidoscope of experiences" he would witness. "In London,people don't tend to look  at each other on the tube, let alone speak. I'm back intobeing my more reserved British self." 

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