Jcb

Understood. Do you think it was because of the prospect of local service or because of no service to Manhattan, or both?

I've been wondering if there's a reason the MTA doesn't send both the and to 179th. Would extending either the or to Parsons/Archer and installing a pair of crossovers west of Parsons/Hillside be a viable solution? So you effectively move the merge further east, and a lower-frequency local serves Jamaica, with a shuttle from Parsons/Archer to Briarwood during the overnights. You might have to rearrange the bus routes in order to not cause an overload at Union Turnpike, but I believe that this relatively minor change would straighten out a lot of problems. Of course, I'm probably overlooking something, and it doesn't instantly fix everything, but what do you think?

Even though I disagree with the idea that a modern el would still be unsightly and noisy, I understand where you're coming from. That would also allow the MTA to recoup some costs of construction by renting space around the line, much like Japan's train station apartment complexes.

No. That's still a ridiculous cost. It should be less. Understood. New elevated construction isn't like most of what we have in this city. It can be much quieter and much lower-impact, much like the AirTrain's viaduct. The above picture is absolutely not an ideal form of construction. Something like this would be much lower-impact. No one considers these because the words "elevated line" conjure up visions of the old steel frameworks. They just need rebranding, at least in my opinion.

The only reason that this project would have such a high price tag is because NYCT refuses to use cut-and-cover construction even though it's faster and cheaper. The insistence on TBMs and the allergy to elevated construction are a big cause of the extreme expense.

You make good points, although the use of deep bore construction to minimize surface disruption is emblematic of the problem with SAS, I think. They decided to avoid dealing with the community as much as possible in order to slap down something that fits today's needs, with no real eye to the future. It didn't have to be some overbuilt mess like the Second System provisions, but I would think I should expect forward thinking out of a new trunk line.

Phase 2,and to a much lesser extent, Phase 1, as we can all agree, are gimped versions of the potential core capacity that could've been gained with a 4-track trunk line, with the excuse given that "stop spacing is further, therefore faster." The curve towards 125 limits potential Bronx capacity and potential ridership siphoned off of all the Bronx IRT lines with the exception of the . The forced reverse branching limits lower 2nd Avenue, if it's ever built, to 15 TPH on the . ANy additional capacity would require the completion of the Queens Boulevard Bypass, another project which would require quite a bit of construction, time, and cost. This also limits potential Brooklyn capacity to 15TPH for Fulton Street, and precludes the creation of new Brooklyn and Queens trunks (Northern Boulevard, Horace Harding Expressway, Union Turnpike) because they would also be very limited in throughput. This also doesn't account for the increased travel time of what's essentially a Lexington Avenue relief line with no alternatives in case of something going wrong (as is traditon on the subway). Maybe if someone wrote a well-thought-out editorial with such concerns, it would become a common refrain somewhere... All they had to do was not blow it on planning for the future in order to save money, and guess what they did.

Few thoughts on the (PM at least) I was on the first. Something must be seriously wrong with local service, whether the switches at Jay or terminal ops at Church, if the is saving 6 whole minutes over the local on that stretch. Having said that, The first PM express was directly behind a local and was lightly loaded from 57th street on down. Might just be a poor interval, though. Culver Express is a lot more heavily timed than I expected, especially considering how lightly used it is. The viaduct's speeds were somewhat disappointing, although I suppose the interlocking by 4th Ave-9th St might have something to do with that I got to Jay Street northbound right after the second express left, and the platform was PACKED. That either doesn't bode well for future service, or means that the express should be scheduled to directly precede a local, IMO. This service pattern won't go away at the end of the trial, it's basically the 2 trains that would randomly go express during the PM peak, but officially in the schedule. The has potential, and is the key to allowing the to finally have consistent, reliable intervals. However, as many people have said, this relies on Bergen Street Lower being reactivated to provide a transfer point for Red Hook and Carroll Gardens residents. Unrelated but the displays as ( F ) on the advertising screens and I think that's neat. (63rd St- 8th avenue connection theories, anyone?)

I figured that more-or-less even frequencies were implied. I'm sorry if it wasn't clear. Services, as a rule, really shouldn't be scheduled to bunch.

A Bay Ridge-Nassau Street service that runs in tandem with the like the old <R> Banker's special, but with expanded hours is probably the best way to solve the problem without any construction IMO. 95th street should have enough capacity to turn those trains. Essex would probably be the cause of the upper limit on capacity, as if you look at the track map, the distance that would have to be covered on a single track is rather long. With a little construction, the old four-track Nassau config could probably be restored, and termination could be done in the middle of Canal street, thus allowing for more frequency. As a bonus, a couple trains each morning and evening (maybe 2-3) before morning rush and then 2-3 after evening rush, could run to Broadway Junction if they need ENY access. Apologies if this proposal already came up earlier in the thread. Also, and unrelated, why did they reconfigure Nassau? What possible benefit was gained by removing two tracks from service and adding a bunch of slow curves to Brooklyn-bound service?

Typical. Cuomo just can't let himself look good by being hands off. Him doing literally nothing would be better than this.

I actually saw the 10 car doing simulated stop testing at Nostrand on Thursday

The NYC subreddit doesn't do much besides complain about everything. It's kind of their thing.

If it's used to its full potential, it can be a huge boon to the operations of the transit system. However, the inefficiency that NYCT currently operates with makes its potential benefits not worth the cost, as we could easily achieve higher frequencies with the signals that we currently have. It definitely has more frequency potential than fixed block, but at this point in time it's too expensive for what we achieve with it.

It's kind of interesting how everyone settled on CBTC as the answer. Although it absolutely has its merits, are there any examples of it scaling up to a system with as much interlining and possibility of reroute? In the interim, though, the MTA has been given lemons. They aren't making the lemonade that they could be.

I notice that CBTC is increasingly described as the technology that fixes any operation and/or speed issues on the subway. I feel , at risk of great oversimplification, that a more efficient operating environment would fix a lot of capacity issues: Reprogram NTT motors to accelerate faster and to higher speeds Loosen penalties for operators that trip timers while traveling at the posted speed Only if it can be proven that they were traveling at or below said speed Decrease braking distances and control lengths Survey every timer in the system and evaluate which are truly necessary for safety Assign each dispatch tower a permanent crew so that they can learn the patterns of their designated area for efficiency's sake Use local recycle on NTTs instead of reopening the entire set Honestly these are a lot easier said than done, but they would probably cost less than and be faster to implement than CBTC for some temporary relief from our current situation. On an unrelated note, connecting IND Fulton St and Montague with SAS provisions would probably be a quick solution for Cranberry's issues

Why don't they run the peak direction express on the El? It would probably eliminate or at least reduce the conga line.

Almost the entire B Division is affected with this one

This was on a weekday.

Has anyone else noticed that service on the and has gone downhill lately? If the trains aren't crawling through normally fast zones, If not that, it's normally absurd waits to the tune of 15+ minutes.

Why does brooklyn have so few artics (one artic route) compared to every other borough except for staten island?

Finally caught the train with the LED screens. They are partially obscured by the poles right in front of them.

Apparently a downtown train is having mechanical problems, forcing other southbound s to go local. I'm not sure if that's the whole story, though, because I just passed it and there were a bunch of officers running towards a single car in the back with half or one door open.

On the , is the approach to Nostrand faster than the one for 42nd?

Should the R179s that have been delivered be visible from the platform at 207th?