Mtatransit

On Saturday/Sunday, I was thinking hourly service to Sunrise/Amityville, and every 30 minutes to Uniondale, so every other bus. While it would be a service decrease on Saturday east of Uniondale on Saturday, it would be a increase on Sunday. Not sure if the n54/55 designation matters if we do run this type of service as both Washington Avenue and North Broadway does not carry that much so it can serve either one. On weekday when service runs every 25 min, I agree with everyone that all trips run to Sunrise/Amityville The problem with the n19, in my experience is that it is very "freeport focused". I'm not even sure there is that much demand from the sunrise end of things. Most ridership comes from Freeport. The problem I think is that the communities along the route, Bellmore, Wantagh, etc stopped utilizing the bus over time. NICE, with the last round of service reductions was just the last straw. Hard to believe this line under LIB ran every 15 minutes during some AM time period

Yep adding more short turns is exactly what I was thinking of. n54/55 runs a full seated load out of Hempstead and like @I Run Trains mentioned, once you get past that Walmart, Shoprite. As for the service to Sunrise, I agree we definitely need to preserve that, as coverage, though I believe the n19 has more potential in terms of ridership in that general area, but NICE completely destroyed the entire route with their cuts I think the ridership traveling along Sunrise Highway, and to the Sunrise Mall is pretty much gone now. Not sure if that thing picks up more ridership now that it is going back to Amityville, but once you get past the Walmart in Uniondale, it usually doesn't pick up anyone, with small pockets of ridership here and there

To be honest the n75 looks like it is designed as a school tripper for Hempstead HS to reach other part of Mineola that just happen to fill some gap between the other n70s for those want to travel from RXR to Hempstead On a unrelated note, I think they needed some sort of short turn n54/55 service. Most ridership got off going to Sunrise at or before Uniondale Avenue each time I took it.

Williamsburg and its surrounding is probably the biggest winner of this. Both the and will run every 8 min at least on Saturday, and they usually run staggered over the Williamsburg Bridge Almost everyone else lose. Especially in Queens along the QBL/Flushing. The mention that the 12 minute headway on the QBL is only to support construction on the line. Geez I wonder when that will end? It's been going on since 2008 and earlier, almost every weekend

I don't have a problem with them reducing some service on weekdays, which BTW MTA said they will not have public hearing on. My problem mostly stemmed from the fact that still provides terrible service on weekends (and nights). The so called discretionary only riders that figures travel on the weekend has to deal with worsening service, never ending construction, never ending train suspension, bunched up service, terrible service headways for many many years now. Beefing lines unrelated to the ones they cut on Monday and Friday doesn't sit right to me. The entire B Div except for the ones they mention could stand for an increase in weekend service, but no lets put it all on the , yet the cuts spread throughout the city. If this is their give back to the city, maybe I am just selfish, is not a fair trade, because now we may have to deal with in Queens (and others) potentially crappy Monday, Friday, Sat and Sunday service instead of just Sat and Sun I am getting so fed up with this terrible service on weekend that I think they should just do a 24/7 closure of lines of selected portions and just do years of constructions in a couple of months. The was cut back from 71 Ave because of WEEKEND construction. This thing has been going on since before 2008. Weekend construction has been going on almost every weekend in some form for 20 years now.

They are also getting rid of the lunch reliefs for the station agents. That is something the MTA has been trying to do for a long time now

For a while didn't LIB/NICE have these at every bus bay? Still good to have it before it breaks, wish they would put something similar at Roosevelt Field

Depending on how much they reduce and I am mostly okay with this. If they say reduce service from every 5 minutes to say 6-7 minutes on these two days ,I been talking about this for a while, reallocating some peak services (even if only Fri/Mon) to weekends But the QBL will see NO service improvement on the weekend (and nights). They mention how and have longer headway than other lines, but that is a lie, most of the IND runs at 12 minutes headway on weekends, while and I believe runs every 10 minutes. I mean I understand there is construction going on along QBL but seriously, construction has been going on on weekends for the past 20 YEARS already. The headway are so bad on weekend, and with the general unreliability of the QBL I rather take the than deal with waiting potentially 25 minute for a train (like what happen to me last week), or a train that crawls from Roosevelt, all the way to Queens Plaza

https://www.amny.com/transit/mta-lieber-subway-turnstiles-redesign-fare-evasion/ MTA is talking about new fare gates. Long overdue, hopefully this will reduce/eliminate the use of emergency exits Meanwhile, I still believe some form of proof of payment need to be implemented in conjunction with this. There is no racism if the entire train is getting checked at grand Central, you don't have a ticket, or you didn't scan your card, you get a fine, simple like that It's amazing how far the NYC subway fell since 2010. We had 6-8 minutes frequency on trains on weekend back then, now we are lucky a train comes in 12 min. Don't even get me started on night/evening service. Train headway are horrible, with 30 minute wait being not unusual. Regarding MTA finances, they are expecting everyone like how Janno Lieber said it "City Hall, Albany and the federal government" to bail them out. There is no real plan of action to reduce expenses and think of ways to be more efficient. They mention reducing expenses by like what 60 million or so, which is a joke in a billion dollar agency. The budget also expect fare evasion to magically fall to 2018 levels (2%), which I'm not sure if they ride their buses and trains, nobody pay, and there is a culture/system of not paying that didn't exist in 2018. Even if the MTA gets their 600 million, it will only avert next year's fiscal cliff. They will be back to the same predicament in a year or two. In the mean time even though the ridership is 60% with weekend and off peak rebounding much faster than traditional peak hours, MTA is providing even crappier off peak service than the pandemic and overserving traditional peak period for ridership that no longer needs to ride at that time, praying that ridership will also magically return to 2019 levels. Overall they are hoping everything returns to 2019, and/or the government bail out whatever expenses they need to, and change nothing within the organization. In short they want to take the easy way out

They do get free buses, but they get no help with operating cost. Private operators will not operate a service especially during off peak hours where ridership is more spread out and more variable if they are going to lose significant amount of money on each trip.

Wait you didn't get the memo that the MTA operates on a donation basis now?

They renovated Belmont Park because the previous year they had a service meltdown, and NYRA decided to fund a new platform for them They may just keep it just in case they need it, but I could tell, they don't really want to use it outside of significant event such as the Belmont Stakes etc, and they definitely don't want to use it for more than two trains a day except the Stakes I believe it makes sense for them not only operationally, but also saves them alot of money not needing to run these extra trips, hence their reluctant to ever service Belmont Park correctly

The MTA doesn't really want to serve Belmont that is why. They would much prefer if everyone uses Elmont so they don't have to add any additional service. That is my suspicion why every single weekend Main Line local and express train stops at UBS arena post ESA, when the station doesn't even serve the community that well. It is so if there is a event, they don;t have to do any additional work, or at most add like one train to/from Jamaica

Woodside would require a cross over in order for passengers to transfer. The island platform for PWB/Main Line serves Manhattan bound Main Line trains, and PWB trains to Port Washington I'm thinking the LIRR need to standardize it's schedule anyways. Under the current schedule, it's an absolute mess of some trains stopping at Woodside, some Woodside, Kew Garden, some Forest Hills, Kew Garden, etc. So I agree with you, we should have a standardized local, express setup. Not looking at the track patterns, here is what I am thinking Main Line service would look like Grand Central - Hempstead, all local stops to Floral Park every 30 minutes Penn Station - Huntington (Penn Sta, Jamaica, QV or Floral, all local to Huntington) every 30 minutes Grand Central - Ronkonkoma (Penn Sta, Jamaica, Mineola, Hicksville The Huntington train would connect with Hempstead train at Floral Park, and the Ronkonkoma train would connect with the Huntington train at Hicksville. Kind of similar to the zone setup by Metro North. it would also eliminate the Jamaica backtrack people from Queens need to do to go further east. Regarding Oyster Bay, don't they all continue out to Jamaica? In some ways that is even worse because it needs to navigate all the tracks presenting potential conflicts with main Line locals and expresses On weekends with the headway LIRR is proposing, I am wondering how many people under the schedules the MTA planned will actually get off at Jamaica to transfer to a GC/PS train versus just waiting for the train to the correct terminal or getting off at GC and walk.

If they run light down to South Ferry, I wonder why they do not allow people to stay on, I'm sure railfans wouldn't mind. I can't imagine them using the Chamber Street switches when the 2/3 is running full service, especially if it would potentially significantly delay southbound service

It would be good if NJT just start subsidizing them. There are some Central Jersey (I'm thinking Academy routes that even pre pandemic, deserves more than peak only service. Instead, it is assumed and still is, that everyone drives to Rt 9 for the 139 Private operator can increase service, however they risk that it will not cover its operating cost for years. On the hand, passengers can not utilize the service if its not there, and overtime, those passenger will seek alternative options

I have a feeling that the reason for this is commuters (at least they used to be) predictable demand. They know there will be people riding the buses during the peak hours versus trying to rebuild the market for off peak, where travel is much more spread out. This is especially hard to do for private operators because they rely solely on the farebox, and the ridership will most likely takes months if not years to be back to what they were in 2019 For government agencies, like NJT and MTA, I wonder if they provide way too much service in the peak periods. Ridership is not back to 2019 level yet, yet they both period 2019 level of peak service instead of beefing up off peak service

I believe alot of the routes were commuter routes. These routes were heavily impacted by the pandemic. For a private operator, they simply can not afford to bring back service when there is no riders, and riders simply can not ride if there is no service. Up to the government ultimately if they see a value in bring these service back. Coach USA's suburban transit division is also a shell of its former self, with Rt 100 running every 2 hours

To be honest I would rather they extend the Newark Light Rail to serve more of Newark, than actively compete with PATH over wetlands. That portion of the 1 isn't even the busiest for NJT anyways

Still not a big fan of having both Oyster Bay tracks arriving on one track especially if they are all continuing to Jamaica/further west, but I guess with the budget that is all that is allowed for without going into deep tunneling/spacing constraints, Same thing goes with the conflict with the Hempstead Branch at Floral Park, granted MTA probably will be content with continuing to run crap service on that branch anyways Also for Mineola, instead of having complete open access to the bus platforms, MTA HAD to put a fence in to separate the railroad from the bus terminal. So much for "intermodal"

Most of the passengers were off the bus by 179th. Actually more pax took the bus all the way to the terminal than got off at the 179th Street Station NICE needs to run this service more frequently than what is currently running right now, especially during the evenings and on weekends. Plus the schedules are way too tight. You sometimes miss transfers at Middle Neck Rd, because Northern blvd was being a bit slower than normal. During those times I just take it all the way to great Neck

I still stand by the fact that we need eagle teams on both subway and buses. This is in addition to additional harder to farebeat turnstiles, prohibiting the use of emergency gates, with new ADA turnstiles Bronx will stand to lose >50% of service, it would most likely violate some sort of Title 6. Staten Island will lose over 40%. The fare beating has been so bad that I'm actually more okay with passengers creating a sob story for the driver, instead of hopping in the backdoor, or just walking on thru the front. On Staten Island, you literally have teenagers taking the bus for two stops wasting everyone time, and of course they would because its free. One of these weeks I'm going to finally just join em, and if I see no one at the stop I'm boarding paying, I'm just gonna put my Metrocard away as well. Sick of being the sucker whenever I'm on the island

I much rather they cut service than "not fill 6 shifts per day" Either way its a service cut, just one you can plan around, and the other is missing buses and pissed off passenger waiting 30 in for a bus that is suppose to come every 15

Maybe the 18 can do a Cortland Town Center - Montrose - Verplanck - Peekskill - Crompound Hospital area. I can't imagine that variation of the 18 doing worse than going to a closed Indian Point Regarding the 15, if they extend that service from Yorktown Heights to Katonah, I think it would gather more riders than expecting Yorktown residents to go into Downtown Peekskill. Just a general "safety thing" for that area of the county. Plus riders can transfer to the 19 for a direct bus trip to White Plains or take the Harlem Line (with or without fare reciprocity). Granted it would probably skip most of Yorktown height proper Regarding 105 I am a fan, that whole area of Ridge Hill, Stew Leonard is very hard to get to by public transportation, so I can kind of see that being a success. Though a lot of it was because the 78 doesn't run often enough 45: Finally that route doesn't end at Mill/WPR. I definitely think it is a good idea to extend service to Tuckahoe (and on going westbound connection to Yonkers/beyond) (and north to WP with Metro North fare reciprocity) Regarding fare reciprocity, I personally don't think it will happen. Considering the fact that the city has been trying for years to have a cheaper fare intra-city, and when the MTA implemented it, it was half -assed with the hidden (at first) Atlantic Ticket, Westchester County will probably pay a pretty penny for the MTA to even consider it. I think the planners intention is to create more of a bus- train culture in Westchester County. However, I always had a feeling that Bee Line riders were even less likely to take the bus to the train than NICE riders are (although that itself is declining significantly as well to the point where its kind of the same). Train riders are train riders, and bus riders are bus riders, there doesn't seem to be much interchange in these two county (though LIB used to be better at this).

They were in awful shape before the buses even burned down to be honest