IAlam

The MTA needs to really coordinate with the NYPD inorder to keep buses moving for the shuttle. Whoever thought it was a good idea to send a bus running up Roosevelt Ave every 2 min and then making a left on the Main St ended up causing so much congestion, with the heavy crowds and the heavy traffic it was a nightmare to get through to Flushing today. Normally it's hard enough for buses to turn onto Main from Roosevelt and usually 1 or 2 max can turn per light. But not only was there a huge flux of additionally buses with all the cars ignoring the busway and no turn rules adding even more congestion, it ended up having a knock on effect on the other bus lines too. I think one of the hardest hit lines was the Q20 with almost 2/3 of its the buses operating stuck on Main St at one point.

To be fair with the they way subways are we need more capacity on lines that just do not have it, so having a lot more people taking the bus especially for shorter trips does add capacity. It just adds another later of service, just more noticeable this time.

These seem like they're better equipped for SBS units rather than local buses. But it seems that the New Flyers and Nova's are using the exact same door this time around so I wonder why the Nova buses versions are having so many issues.

Honestly the plug doors don't seem to work well on local buses. Unlike the previous doors where you press the handle or tape and it swings open the couple times I ridden on these newer buses I'd have to press really hard on the door a couple times before it opens, and I'm not sure if it's the driver just noticing and opening it for me. I've seen a lot of other people struggle too. These might work better for SBS units since all doors open at every stop.

Some of those bus ops love to trail behind each other until they get to a point on the line where they typically don't see anymore passengers getting on and then speeding towards the end. I've learned the hard way to just let 1 or 2 buses to pass before flagging down a bus. I almost always get questioned and yelled at for doing it too but if they're playing games I'm willing to play too, especially if I can get to my destination faster.

Very few that come to mind for me and those road are usually on the furthest edges in the city and IIRC some still have 30 MPH signs. As for out of sync light that's problem I do agree needs fixing. I don't directly consider speeding as reckless as I referred to in that quote.

Is there a mod that can move the last couple of posts in this convo over?

I don't think upping the speed limit will really fix that either, there are very few major roads where you can go safely above 30 without some obstacle. But driving in a city isn't supposed to be fun, there's too many cars, even if we can magically speed everything up and restore every car it won't fix the congestion, the city was just as congested before. Don't forget delivery services like uber eats and door dash which love to double park in front of restaurants and building. Unlike for hire vehicles I believe this market is not capped. I mean it's not like we're supposed to get a license that is supposed to show we know how to follow the rules. This is just a really bad take reckless driving not leading to an accident rely on other people paying attention getting out of their way and trying to not get hurt or killed themselves. Most of the reckless driving I see comes from out of state plates especially NJ. I saw lady from NJ drive the wrong way down a major road and nearly hit another car who had to swerve out of the way, just so she could get a parking spot. She then proceeded to block the entire road as she did a very poor U turn just to pull into the spot. It doesn't matter how hard it is to drive or find parking, anyone who drives like that should get their license suspended at the very least. Craziest part my cousin who was driving was able to just quickly take her spot by making a normal UTurn when the light turned red. Luckily there were 2 spots instead of 1 but it just shows you how crazy people are. People who can't keep their cool really shouldn't be behind the wheel.

When it comes to business in the city I really doubt many business are really dependent on car traffic and those that area already have their own parking lots. That being said in a city were it's constantly stated only a 1/3 of people here even own a car a bus stop being by a business is way more beneficial since it brings in pedestrians that actually walk past and can observe a store front. When I hear about business crying about loosing parking because of a bus lane to only see that the stores width is no more than 1-2 parking spots, I cannot believe that that business is staying afloat with that little space. Then when some of these same restaurants found they could place tables in the parking spot in front of building they all of a sudden couldn't care less about the loss of parking. You're right about the economic impact but, transit access, bike access and for local deliveries, and pedestrian have a far greater impact than cars. Granted if you can run a reliable 10 min bus service that isn't getting stuck in mixed traffic you'll probably be able to grow ridership too which is a bigger win for the business in the area too. The only times cars matter is when you have a lot of space for them, and that comes at the cost of everyone else. I definitely agree with you there, but most of the road space already is dedicated to cars, and then it's expected that pedestrians and bikes are supposed to battle out what little remaining space there is. Have you ever walked down the sidewalks or 8th or 6th Ave? Those sidewalks are beyond congested and funnel a lot more people the and cars in less than half the space. In Flushing they got rid of a lane on Main St and doubled the sidewalk and the sidewalk is still just as congested as before. You act like I'm think the cars are the problem, at the end of the day I couldn't care less on who does or doesn't drive. What annoys me is when we give cars 80% or the road space to at best move 20% of all people using that road. Adding sidewalk extensions like on 8th Av and bikes lanes just makes things for fair for the rest of us. Blaming Jay walkers for issue related to cars is just blind sided IMO because most of this city was built before that term or cars even existed. Pedestrians are treated like second class citizens when crossing the street in Queens you're constantly waiting up to 2+ min some times to cross the street. When you're not sitting comfortably in a car those 2 min feel a lot longer. I've noticed in Queens there are a lot of intersections now where you have to wait for traffic to go in both directions before the give you 30 seconds or less to cross, and if you miss that you'll have to wait another 2 min. That's absolutely ridiculous because in those 2 min I'm waiting for traffic I can count ~20 cars and then in the 30 seconds pedestrians get you'll see ~50 scrambling to get across before the lights change. As a driver I rarely see pedestrians crossing directly in front of me when they don't already have the right of way. In the cases they don't have the right of way they'll unusually only cross when there's a good distance between me and them and/or I'm already braking to stop behind another car. Most people crossing are smart enough to look both ways where they're not crossing at a crosswalk and they don't really pose much of safety issue. Where I do see people getting hit is when the car is turning and not paying attention, or failing to give the pedestrian the right of way like they're supposed to. It's ridiculous how often a car making a left turn will just speed as soon as the light turns green and floor it so everyone runs out of their way, or cuts their turn in a way that's just dangerous to pedestrians and other drivers.

Certain aspects of vision zero are working ie. barricade, bollards, islands are helping reduce the severity of accidents. A car that drives up a bollard or barrier is a car that didn't drive into a bike or a pedestrian. That being said going to what VG8 said the amount of cars that actually follow road rules is minimal at best, speeding, wreck less driving, distracted driving are all up. There's a lot more people not following the rules and paying attention now than ever before. If the NYPD actually enforced road rules instead of breaking it themselves then there could a big difference.

Based on the first 2 drafts it seems like the start with some good ideas and that's what we see with the major routes, but then the deeper they get into it the more it seems like the routes themselves are just filling in the dead space rather than actually being useful. It becomes very evident the further you look into NE Queens where some areas are over served and others have no useful services in their neighborhood. There's way too much you've said to directly quote and address everything. But too add my 2 cents the issue with NYC traffic stems down to chokepoints that cannot really ever be expanded. Adding a lane in the BQE won't help anything because the traffic stems from the multiple late of traffic trying to squeeze down into 1-2 lanes for the East river crossings. You can't expect adding a lane on the BQE to instantly rectify the capacity issues on the East River crossings. What you can expect is that the cars that were avoiding the BQE before now see that there's more space and since local streets are so slow and the MTA is so bad that it's more advantageous to drive. Before you know it there was just as much congestion as there was before. There is a reason in the margining traffic flows so much better in Manhattan than in the evening. In the morning traffic is limited coming in, but in the evening all the traffic builds up leading into the crossings. Most of the traffic I see downtown in the afternoon/evening comes from people coming from different parts of the island and then trying to squeeze into a 2 lane bridge/tunnel. If you don't believe it you can always take a look further west in a state like Texas and California with mega highways, far less people per sq mile yet still dealing with massive congestion like New York. At a certain point you do realize when you reduce the throughput of how many cars can go through an area you also reduce how many cars there are? Many people complain about how removing a lane on the Brooklyn Bridge cause more congestion, but how I see it that reduces the number of cars per hour that can actually enter Manhattan and creates a physical barrier to the number of cars that can get into the city. Same thing with outdoor dining assuming the space is being used, I know there's an issue with some spaces beign abandoned but that's a separate topic that should probably warrant it's own thread. Those parking spaces means there's less space for cars that don't need to be there in the first place. Vehicles that need to be there like service vehicles and trucks will still go because they have to, but a person in their own car will be dissuaded from going somewhere where they won't be able to park. Lastly there are other things we could do to help with the parking issue, like resident only street parking that many other cities do, more short term pick up and drop off areas for cars/taxi's/rideshares, and few parking options from out of towners. I should not see Florida and Georgia plates in the free parking in my neighborhood on a daily basis, if they come from out of town in a car they can also pay for that space at a garage, space is at a premium here and there's no reason they should get that for free/cheap. If they can afford take up our limited space they can also afford to pay a premium for it too. When it comes to bike lanes, as a pedestrian I hate having bikes and e-scooters on the sidewalk, I got hit by an e-scooter once while walking in a busy area and ended up loosing my earbuds. I also know many car drivers in the city hate bikers as well. So for the argument of giving bikers their own lane to me seems like a no brainer. As both a pedestrian and motorist I want to deal with bikes and e-scooters as little as possible, so when they're in their own lane they're not trying to zigzag in front of me. So many people forget when there is no bike lane the bikes are supposed to go on the street. Motorist want the bikes and pedestrians to shares the least amount of space possible disregarding the fact the 3 lanes width of sidewalks and bike lanes can push far more people through than 3 lanes of car traffic can. For for the argument of underutilized bike lanes the bike lanes can't be useful if it only exists in a small handful of streets. You need a network similar to our road or sidewalk network to actually get people to bike more. There's no incentive for me to bike between A and B if there's no bike path between A and B. A bike lane might not get much use now but as the lanes grow so do the trip opportunities. One big congestion generator that doesn't get much attention is food delivery. I see it day after day in Queens where delivery drivers park in bus stops and bus lanes and clog up streets to pick up and drop off food. But in Manhattan I see a lot more delivery bikes, the difference between where I am and Manhattan is the fact Manhattan as a lot more bike infrastructure while my area barely has anything. Tying this back into the actual topic. I've seen great improvements in the traffic volume in Flushing since the bus lanes and bus way has been instituted. When cars are actually following the rules. When I was a kid I remember constantly being able to outwalk the Q44 going into Flushing. Now days it's almost always faster than walking and on the worst days like weekends and holidays I can keep up with it at best. That's a huge improvement from what traffic was like when I was a kid and now driving on Main St is much more tolerable now. What I do agree with you is how there isn't any good regional connections/fare structure. We should have better connections between, state and county boarders and that's probably another good thread. But when people says it's not there so they shrug it off so they drive will do little to nothing to help that. There one thing I notice about people who drive here and that's they all recognize there's not enough space for all the cars here. Yet some think that there's no space so it's a good idea to look for another way, while others have this dangerous idea that they need more space for cars. Money is already hard enough to get as is with our current political system, but it's hard enough to get money for a infrastructure project as is let alone multiple. Someone advocating for a widening of a highway is probably not advocating or caring about building a new subway line or adding more bus service, which has a greater impact per dollar than a new lane does. Looking at the redesign I really hope the DOT is more aggressive in adding and enforcing more bus lanes in the city because there is no way a redesign will be successful if cars are stuck in the same traffic with cars.

I genuinely believe it's the management there, going back to what VG8 said if the union leader doesn't care and I doubt the management does either. It's not a surprise that bus ops are doing their own thing. At CP it seems like you can get away with quite a bit as long as you don't hit anything with you bus. A good chunk of BO's there will only worry about what management will hound them over, and if management doesn't care, then there is no incentive for them to care either. This is why they were getting away with just dumping everyone off at Herald Sq for the longest time until a big enough fuss was made for them to actually do their job.

Bad schedule, bad route, bad drivers that's the perfect storm to end up loosing everything and the redesign isn't helping either. Guess well have to wait and see if they salvage this in the final draft or not.

As much as I hate to say it if CP looses most of their express runs because of the redesign it’s on them. I can’t keep defending express buses when I can barely rely on them. I’m definitely at the point where I’m starting to view the LIRR even during peak as a better option. I’m on a bus now probably the first time in months and the op is just dragging his bus on QB stopping early on every red. Luckily I’m not in a hurry today but idk how normal riders put up with this.

Honestly if that was the case they should just do local ops since passengers usually don't stand near the front. But these drivers take express runs knowing they're not busy and then do everything in their power to avoid picking up passengers. They just wanna drive to the end as fast as possible with no one bothering them not realizing that they're the reason people stopped taking the bus. I genuinely believe the biggest factor impacting poor ridership on queens express buses is how CP manages their bus ops. Nowadays I would rather walk to Penn than take the express bus even if it's right there. But that applies to all CP lines I'd rather take the X68 and take the long way back over routes like the QM2/4 or the Q17 over the Q25 because I'm sick of it.

Yeah it's too bad they're not working on getting the remining buses in the area into the new terminal, having the Q17, Q20, Q24, Q54, Q56, and Q44 going into the terminal could vastly help improve east to west connections. I wonder if it's possible to get the lot across the street as well but I can see the NYPD throwing a fit over losing their parking.

This is what I was referring to only the new buses have it but it doesn't make sense because the loner seat has long since reopened on all the older buses. That's probably why I have slowly been seeing more and more of them without it. I genuinely thought for the longest time that the MTA just eliminated the seat there, so I was surprised to see it available on a couple buses recently.

Ok so with my experience with GCM there are 4 exits each color coded for the street they lead to. There is a hidden back staircase to the 100 level MNR platforms behind the escalators at 45th St and and another hidden connection to the 2 digit platforms on 47th St. If you know your connecting track it is much faster to use those connections than walking to/from GCM and backtracking to GCT.

The major issue with the flip up seats is even though they’ve been around for a while people still don’t know about them. Also on a side note does anyone know if the MTA is finally removing the seat covers on the new Nova buses. I’m starting to see more CS Novas without the seat cover behind the driver. But I have yet to see cover removed on a QV or JA bus.

Does anyone know what track the GCT trains leave Jamaica from? Will it be a cross platform transfer at Jamaica or will people have to climb over to another track?

Something you're also missing is the fact that here in the tristate area we don't have day passes, unlike most other cities you can go to. Many other systems like CT and Toronto have 2 hours of unlimited trips per each fare you pay which makes it easier for people to do short trips. One of the biggest issues with the flat fare is that a long trip between Staten Island and the Bronx costs the same as a short 1 mile bus trip. If I'm going across Flushing to do shopping on most busy days it can take 15-30 minutes to go 1-2 miles. The travel times are pretty similar regardless if I walk, drive or take the bus. But the difference is I'm not walking home with a bunch of shopping bags, and if I have to pay $5.50 for a RT that's under 3 miles I'd rather drive. What your skipping over is the fact that those trips are usually very short unlike a one way trip from somewhere like Flushing to Manhattan which is 8-10 miles and I'm only paying $2.75 for that. Had the MTA had a similar 2hr unlimited ride system or a daily cap with OMNY it might have made a difference, but getting mad at people for not paying full price on a trip that doesn't merit it in the first place is just doesn't make sense. It's not like they're walking on the bus without paying which so many more people do. Your skipping the real problem to focus on a much smaller almost non issue really.

Really, was that whole waiver thing for?

I wonder if they're fully installing PTC before they open it this time, since they missed the deadline there's no reason to rush and start the shuttle.

🤷‍♂️, nothing about that transfer privilege makes sense to me in the first place, it's a a short walk between all those routes anyways. Maybe you can make an argument for the LTD buses but even then with the bus way it doesn't make sense for those buses to divert off of Archer anymore. Regardless my point was more focused on how it's difficult for traverse through Queens via these hubs due to routes not connecting, and through routes not having optimal paths. If the same logic applied in a Hub like Flushing I should be getting a free transfer from the Q58 <-> Q20/44 <-> Q13,16,28. But even that feels dumb, the Q17/30/31 extra transfer doesn't really help with connectivity in Jamaica either. The connections and through buses at hubs should make more sense based on the communities needs.

The ability to ride through major hubs today is definitely lacking especially in places like Flushing and Jamaica. But there's also a bigger divide between routes east and west of the Van-Wyck/Corona Park. It's extremely difficult to get between Eastern Queens and Western Queens without a transfer at a hub in most cases. Also with how big these transfer hubs are there's also a big issue with transferring within them. The walk from the Q58 to the Q28 can take up to 10 minutes on really a busy day. In Jamaica because you cannot connect between many routes and they also have these weird transfer privileges in place. That being said there are still many combos that don't make the most sense ie the Q15/Q19, Q48/Q50. As time goes one I'm more open to accept a Q10/Q64 than those. Oddly enough I think one route that could've massively helped the community would've been a Corona to College Point direct route which the could've provided many one seat rides to the people who take the in the morning to connect with the Q25/Q65. To be honest it might have been better to do that than keeping those as North/South through routes as almost the entire bus turns over at Flushing.