MTA Dude

2 hours ago, Calvin said:

Don't know if it's a common sight to see: on the R46, when arriving at Canal St on the platform Brooklyn bound, the doors can slide left to right on some part when it's at the platform waiting for the passengers to exit and enter the train.  Seen on the very first car of the train where the T/O punches to what part they are heading on. 

I've seen that years ago when the R46s were still running on the . Honestly pretty fun to watch.

On 12/29/2023 at 5:58 AM, B35 via Church said:

I wasn't trying to implicate that particular stretch carries lightly, but at the same time, I do see more people from Flushing have more of a use for a Q98 of sorts, compared to the current Q58 LTD.... So if they're going to do away with the Q58LTD, I would look to increase local service along Grand av & that section of the route b/w QB & 108th st. in Corona.... Basically what I'm getting at is that there's more usage along the Grand st. corridor than there is on the Q58 b/w QB & 108th....

As far as having the Q59 ending at Rego Center vs. ending it where the current Q38 does (which I thought about doing at first), the latter would be too huge of a deterrent - even more so than not retaining the Q58 local to/from Flushing for those folks b/w QB & 108th.....

I was asking about how many people use the Q58 specifically to get from Flushing to the Broadway/Corona Ave stop, then walk further up Broadway to get to Elmhurst Chinatown. But I guess people who want to make that trip are more likely to take the given the amount of traffic the Q58 often has to deal with.

Still not sure why the Q59 should loop back to Rego Center. The only benefit I see is to connect it to 108th St. It's way too big of a loop to benefit anyone along Grand or Corona Ave.

On 12/22/2023 at 3:02 PM, B35 via Church said:

Q58/Q98: The thing about this coupling to me is that I don't have a problem with the routes individually - but I don't think there's necessarily a need for both these variants of the current Q58 to run between Ridgewood & Flushing either.... I would try my hand at combining the two core concepts into one route; as in, running b/w Ridgewood & Grand/QB making Q58 stops, to then doing the Q98 routing b/w Grand/QB & Flushing (putting it another way, maintaining the Q98 route, but have it make more stops south of QB).... If a concept like that ends up attracting more of the masses (than the Q58, which I would expect, because I find that significantly more of the masses that board in Flushing disembark at QB, moreso than any accumulation/total of pax that disembark along 108th or along Corona av, short of QB), then I'd have the Q59 run over the Q58 routing along Corona av, to circle back down towards the Rego Center, like this....

Are there not a lot of people using the Q58 between Elmhurst and Flushing? Would've expected a decent amount since they're both Chinatowns, and if so, missing service to the Broadway/Corona Av stop could be a pretty big deal. But if not, I really like the idea of having the Q59 replace service along Corona Ave (maybe not loop back to Rego Center though, I'd have it end with the Q38). At least for me, the benefit of the Q98 is more about finally getting a direct connection between Flushing and QCM, and sending the Q59 onto Corona Ave would let the Q58 do that.

Is CBTC still having issues with the 63rd St shutdown? I thought maybe it was because it struggled to handle trains entering CBTC territory and then immediately afterward having to deal with the merges at Queens Plaza.

6 minutes ago, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

Go to Roosevelt Av station in Queens. In a normal rush hour, the  and  are timed well and enter and leave the station at very high speeds. I think for Manhattan bound  and  trains, train spacing is already dealt with by the time they get to Forest Hills, so they are able to travel at high speeds for the rest of the journey into the city. Another advantage is that in normal times when the  uses 63rd, it doesn't have to worry about merging with anything new when the  and  diverge. Furthermore, if the  has to wait for an  train going into 53rd, the  can still go ahead into 63rd.

Yes, they are timed well, for the frequencies they have to work with. It's simply untrue that trains enter Roosevelt at high speeds during rush hours. Before CBTC, express trains would crawl all the way from Forest Hills to Jackson Heights. Now with CBTC allowing for closer spacing, trains only need to crawl after Elmhurst Ave. It's just inevitable with the combined 2min headways that Jackson Heights would be a bottleneck, especially with how crowded the platform is. The section at 65th St is extremely fast, I'll give you that, and I love riding it. But that's still an extremely short section of the route, after which trains need to slow down to turn onto Northern Blvd.

Yes, I'm aware of the LIRR's 80mph trains going from Jamaica to Penn blazingly fast. That's because it's built like a railroad with favorable track geometry and limited stops. For how curvy QBL is, the speeds we already have are extremely impressive IMO.

2 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Let me get my two cents into the  QBL conversation. Just how many people are traveling eastward from the Crosstown line to the Forest Hills area ? How many people are doing this trip in reverse ? Meanwhile there are people complaining about the  service on both ends. My simple solution is to run the  between Astoria and Bay Ridge. Send the  from Whitehall to Forest Hills from 6 am til 9 or 10 pm daily. Run the  local when the  and the  don’t run. Back in the ancient times we were taught to isolate the problems and adding the  is not the solution, IMO. I bet it would help the  problems elsewhere . K. I.S.S should be the motto for RTO scheduling. No problem with anyone who has a different opinion. Carry on.

I don't have an overall opinion on a extension, but an argument in favor of it would be to replace a big chunk of the functionality in queens, which is to feed into the . At least back in middle school when I was a regular rider, the would always tank out at Jackson Heights with people transferring to the express, much more than the . The would regularly arrive at Jackson Heights jam packed, sometimes even by Grand Ave if there was even the slightest gap in service. Extending the would fill that role and provide relief to the along QBL. Though I haven't seen how the is currently holding up or if those ridership patterns I observed have changed since then.

6 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I can think of three, CPW Express, QBL Express (after 36th St), and Lex Express.

Do any of them even come close to 55mph for any extended period of time? Even then, you'd shave off like, what, half a minute? And only outside of rush hours because otherwise the high frequencies cause bottlenecks entering the stations anyway.

3 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

Does anyone here know if it’s possible for the  express to run on the middle track on the culver line, if so, should it be studied?

Possible? Yes. But ridership is so low on the BMT Culver that it can't be worth it, plus it would interfere with short turns at Kings Hwy.

Honestly, having a high-frequency route like the  run down to Coney Island never really made any sense to me, the entire route south of Church Ave has about the same ridership as Jamaica-179 alone.

10 hours ago, Fire Mountain said:

Ok, I got an idea. Hear me out. The Q96 Rush. Operates between Roosevelt Island and either Corona or College Point via Northern Bl as an express option to the Q66 (but not touching Main Street) and still providing RI residents a one seat ride to Queens Plaza (unlike the Q104 in the proposal) 

What y’all think?

...but why? Where's the demand between Northern Blvd and Roosevelt Island? Running it to College Point and bypassing Main St doesn't make any sense either, because again, where's the demand between Northern Blvd and College Point?

I just revamped the map of my (terrible) proposals I made a year ago. In this version I experimented with breaking up routes to improve reliability and avoid serving multiple disjoint ridership bases with a single route.

PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O2S3c3NDRbgXfH_oRwAFfIbeSaDuKxXl/view?usp=sharing

SVG: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lVRDE5hga5xQu0x63f66ZL_xDcA0_D3H/view?usp=sharing

I did assume certain ideal situations, so a lot of my proposals honestly might not be realistic IRL. Assumptions include:

• Archer Ave busway, Jamaica Ave returned to cars
• 165th St terminal replacement is built on the other side of 168th St instead
• New Flushing bus terminal built on the parking lot at Queens Crossing
• Bus lanes along Hillside Ave and Northern Blvd east of Flushing
• 160th St in Jamaica and 58th St in Maspeth become two-way roads
• Maybe Queens Blvd buses get moved off the service road like we've been promised for so long
• Buses have right of way when pulling out of bus stops
• You get unlimited free transfers within 2 hours (even on the same route)

On my map, limited routes will have their stops shown as white circles, and there will be no local variant under the same designation.

The labels are a mess right now and I don't really have the time nor motivation to make it look nice like I did with the last version of the map, so hopefully this will do. I already see a mistake with a 64 icon being left near Citifield...

And here's a few proposed routings in the Bronx:

Q44:

Bx94:

QBx1:

On 6/28/2022 at 4:29 PM, MTA Dude said:

Here's a map of what I would do for the Queens bus redesign. It's not finished yet (so no labels) but hopefully it's enough to understand the details of each route. I recommend downloading the PDF since Google Drive's PDF viewer isn't that good IMO.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O2S3c3NDRbgXfH_oRwAFfIbeSaDuKxXl/view?usp=sharing

20 hours ago, SoSpectacular said:

Blame the street redesigns that haven't fixed or made worse the traffic conditions on the roads. Can't even use certain "backdoor" streets to be put in place because everyone else is using the same streets to circumvent traffic. It's practically hopeless to keep close to schedule. Better take what you can get or adjust your schedule to allow yourself more time.

The one Vision Zero policy from the deBlasio years I'm familiar with is the traffic light turning green about 7 seconds after the corresponding pedestrian light. I still don't know what that was supposed to accomplish... giving pedestrians a chance to enter the crosswalk and make themselves visible? All it's done for me is give me an extra 7 seconds to jaywalk after the light turns red... I do like the new "delayed green" intersections though, where all the pedestrian lights turn green at once, and then stay red when the traffic light is green. As long as the lights are still synced properly along the street, I think it could do a lot for traffic flow at busy intersections by preventing turning traffic from backing up and blocking through traffic because they have to wait for pedestrians to cross.

I get that some bus routes just suffer from traffic, and some of the redesigns haven't helped with that, but it's not bad enough along the Q25 on weekends for it to run as poorly as it does. It usually faces heavy traffic in Flushing down to Holly Ave and along Jamaica Ave, but afaik you don't often see the same gaps in service on the Q17 and Q27 that run on the same stretch of Kissena Blvd.

11 hours ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

I know there is currently a push to get more people to use public transportation due to the environment and what not. My biggest critique of this push for more public transportation usage is that service on some routes continues to run like dog crap when they shouldn’t. 

I work Saturday mornings and every week I pretty much have to deal with dog crap service on the Q25 just getting to work. There was a 40 minute gap in service today during the 7am hour and when these buses do run normal they are packed and darn near making every stop. So when service run terrible like it does most weeks how do they expect people to continue to deal with this. That is why me personally I advocate for personal car usage because we have to get around and the MTA and NICE bus prove that they can’t be relied upon. 

That's not an argument for more personal cars, that's an argument for fixing the damn management on these bus routes. It's ridiculous how badly the Q25 and Q65 run (I'm sure other CP routes run badly too but I haven't been paying attention). They get bunched up at some point during the day and there's next to no attempt to fix the bunching. I've seen days in the past few weekends where not a single bus on the Q25 wasn't bunched with another. This has been going on for years too, I remember as a kid when Orion Vs were still running that the Q25 was horribly unreliable and the Q17 was the much better alternative, so we'd walk the half a mile to the Q17 instead when we didn't want to gamble on the Q25. I think both routes should be split at Flushing since the 70min runtime of both routes certainly doesn't do them any favors, but with how bad CP management is I'm not sure if it would even help.

1 hour ago, IAlam said:

I was about to say why should the resources be for an express variant to 179 when the n24 already picks up on a decent portion of that stretch. That's pretty much the express variant. Though I do wonder if the 82 really needs to be an express route.

Because the express already exists right now in the form of the Q36 LTD (just that it'll also run outside of peak direction rush hours), and the N24 runs every 15 min, over double the headways of the Q36 during rush hours.

1 hour ago, Q43LTD said:

It will still go to Jamaica, just in the form of the 57

Yes, it'll run local from Floral Park all the way to Jamaica Center, which will take 8-11 min longer to get to Forest Hills and points west according to Google Maps. So the question is who deserves this 10 min reduction in travel time more, the 0.8 mile stretch of Hempstead Ave or the 2 mile stretch of Jamaica Ave/Jericho Tpke?

I'm more concerned with Jamaica Ave losing its Q36 rush service, especially in exchange for a not even one mile stretch of Hempstead Ave getting it instead...

8 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

If that’s the case, then they should remove the red and green LED lights since it’s not useful at this moment, we shouldn’t be concerned about remove it either am I right or am I right……..

Removing it requires an entire software update on its own, and for what?

10 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

We’re still trying to get the announcements on the pilot set to play properly. Like I said, last time I was on it, I had to shut them off because I got tired of resetting it.

Is it just the pilot set with those issues? Thought the pilot was supposed to be representative of the entire order so it'd be kinda funny but unfortunate if there were issues specific to the pilot.

On 7/22/2023 at 6:26 PM, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Part of it is because they get away with underserving the Q66. There's a lot of activity at every stop because it's a major corridor, and it has a lot of commercial areas. I think that headways should be increased during the day. During the rush not only should there be more service, but that there should also be an LTD variant. That, along with the bus lanes (and proper enforcement) would have been more helpful than just seemingly eliminating every other stops, making certain transfers more inconvenient. 

Eliminating those Q66 stops definitely wasn't the right way to speed up service. Northern Blvd is a corridor that I think would definitely benefit from limited stop service, just not one that completely duplicates the route. I would run the local from Flushing to Woodside, and then the LTD could be used to parallel the , running from Corona straight along Northern Blvd to QBP and then across the bridge, maybe to Columbus Circle because that's been proposed a few times before, but at the very least to Lexington Ave to relieve the . I think that would be better than just a limited variant that risks carrying air and having to run less frequently by skipping so many stops.

Caught the R211 on my way to work the other day. Overall I really like the direction of the design, but it really feels unpolished and I really hope they improve it for the R262/268.

First, the windows. They're pathetically small and remind me a lot of the R32 windows. I know it's to accommodate the wider doors, but it really sucks and I'm not sure if there are solutions other than plug doors or building the door compartment out of glass. Speaking of the doors, why aren't the windows bigger to fit the door? Someone here said that it's the same as the R160 windows to make replacements more readily available, but I feel like they could've gone with R142 door windows, which are also bigger.

Cutting the seats down from 6 to 5 is fine, but I wish they extended the seats by a few inches up to the door frame so it wouldn't be as tight of a squeeze like all our current subways and buses.

The ride was anything but smooth. The car bounced a lot, though I rode it from 42nd St to Fulton St, and I don't know if that section of the express is bouncy for all car types. Personally, the bounciness makes the ride more fun, but definitely not for the average passenger.

And of course, the rollsign displays. They're just not high resolution enough, and getting high-res screens was clearly not a problem if they were able to give it to all the FINDs and ad panels. 

Just my first impressions, I still think these are really cool trains. Really excited to see more of these hit the tracks.

I'm starting to question the usefulness of stop removal or even limited stop for speeding up service. According to timetables, a good limited service might save around 5-6min for an hour long route, which really isn't a lot especially if few people are even riding the entire length of that route. What they often do instead is distort ridership between the limited and local, effectively causing them to bunch up and cause problems for consistent service. I think what would make a much bigger impact is a law giving buses the right of way when reentering traffic. Many drivers are already pretty good at being aggressive with reentry, but making it a law would definitely help on high traffic streets. The other thing that would help, although this is more of a pipe dream, is to make all the buses free so there aren't lines to pay for the bus and all doors can be used. 

I'm fine with most of the rush routes since they're meant to serve the branches far away from the subway, and crosstown/SBS since they'll probably have a ridership base separate from the locals with enough stops removed that it might actually make a difference, but most proposed limited routes should just be locals with no limited counterpart IMO.

Delay that happened this morning:

I'm wondering what being "unable to move a train" means. Motor or propulsion issues? Glitch in the train's software? If it were emergency brakes or door issues, then they probably would've specified. I was on the train right behind the train that had issues, and we were held just outside of Queens Plaza only for about 5 min, so whatever it was couldn't have been major. Also don't know why the locals also had to be held outside of Queens Plaza for a bit. That would imply that an  got stuck crossing the switch, blocking both tracks, but I also feel like that would've been a problem that would take longer than 5-10 min to solve.

2 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

There is no reason to walk between cars when the train is in motion

In an actual emergency, how the hell are they supposed to handle the emergency if you propose they activate the emergency brakes in the middle of the tunnel?? There are TWO crew members on board, neither of which are trained as first responders. You want them to get out of their cab and walk all the way to the door that was opened to """investigate""", which by then you would have no clue who opened the door anyway? Case in point: the  train shooting a while back. You really think that if it was an NTT, the brakes should be activated in the tunnel if someone tried to escape to the next car? Is that really the best way to handle things?

18 minutes ago, Theli11 said:

11-Car line alleviates the congestion on the line. Removing it and making the entire line 10 cars would mean the train would carry roughly 170-180 less people per train. Seeing as how crowded the line is compared to other lines (it being the only line that goes to Flushing and has one of the most crowded terminus, and unlike other stadiums, the only subway to serve Mets Stadium. 11-Cars is very justifiable and costs can't be that bad that they'd screw up the line. Yes it was designed for the worlds fair but now it has other purposes like making the crowding on the line better. If the Flushing line was built with to do 12-cars, I'd push for it. 

This 100%.

I've taken the  semi-regularly pre-pandemic, and you literally had to fight and push your way onto trains at Queensboro Plaza and 74th-Broadway. What @Chris89292 is proposing is to cut capacity by 9% just for the sake of slightly more compatibility with the rest of the IRT, compatibility that is already lacking to begin with because of the lack of track connections.

If there's really a legitimate concern of 6-car sets being limited to the , then you could order singles to make those 11 car trains. That way you could take it out to run on other IRT lines in a pinch.

12 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

 Nah I think the  should just run as a 10 car set to avoid these type of problems, especially since NTT’s aren’t capable to do this random number input like the R62A’s, doesn’t matter if the community disagrees, it’s a way to save money like I said in the past in another thread post, every other subway line has crowding issues as well, but the MTA doesn’t add extra cars for it, so why the ? 

...because the  is the most frequent yet one of the most crowded subway lines in the entire system. Unlike other IRT lines, the  has the platforms to accommodate 11 car trains, so there is no good reason not to give it 11 car trains.

On 12/5/2022 at 12:00 AM, Lawrence St said:

Are there any bus stops in NYC that have been removed but still remain or installed but no buses actually serve that stop?

The one I know of is the bus shelter for the Q74 at Kissena/Melbourne. It got repurposed for the Queens College shuttle a few years ago.

On 7/10/2022 at 11:48 PM, Cait Sith said:

That Q10, not only am I against the idea the line going to Fresh Meadows, but the southbound routing would be a disaster, as it would actually have to go to 78th AVenue and then loop around, which is counterintuitive for that kind of route along. It's not a straight shot as you've designed it.

Shortening the Q56 at the hospital, not a fan either. The Q55 maybe, but the Q56 should continue going to Jamaica. Ridership isn't low enough to warrant it to be removed from Jamaica(unless that part of the map is still being developed).

I just hope the Q110 isn't the sole line along Jamaica Avenue, because.....oof

I think the Q10 to Fresh Meadows is a better version of the Q10/Q64 merge, which was trying to combine two high density routes to run artics on and provide connections between Lefferts Blvd and points east of the Van Wyck without having to go through Jamaica. I'm aware of the southbound routing on 78th Ave, and while it is a bit annoying, I don't see a huge problem with it.

I'm assuming your comment on Jamaica Ave is about Downtown Jamaica. I get that all the stores are on Jamaica Ave and Archer Ave is much more barren, but Archer Ave is almost fully contained within Downtown Jamaica, making it a much better busway than Jamaica Ave IMO without being too far of a walk. I chose the Q56 as the sole Jamaica Ave line because a good chunk of the line serves as a  supplement, so it can afford to stay on the more congested Jamaica Ave and preserve the connection to 171st St. That's also why I have it making that loop to directly serve Jamaica Hospital in both directions. 

As for the map itself, the only major thing left to do is labelling the insets with bus routes, stops, and street names. Not sure when I'll get to it though.