RR503

1 hour ago, RTOMan said:

They changed it up with the supplement..

They added two extra trains....

One to the highway..

One to Stillwell.

Which makes the log jam at church worse..

So bad lots of Foxes got skips from Church to the Highway yesterday!

B4 Track from Church to 7th ave to smooth sailing no timers.. From Church to Jay there are timers.. Fourth ave and just  north of smith ninth...

They issued _another_ supplement?? 

Re: timers, what are the speeds from 7th to Jay? If my memory serves me, it’s 30 into 4th, and then 35 off the viaduct, becoming 30 between Carroll and Bergen, and then 25 into Bergen Lower — all 2 shots. Is this correct? Thanks much! 

I find it the height of irony that they chose to implement  while doing nada about the issues are Church. Those 2 minute dwell times from  terminal ops are fixable whether it be by actually fixing the clearing issues, or by just extending s to 18th middle and running the area like 206/BPB. The extension could likely be done within the amount of time allotted for layovers, anyway...

1 minute ago, Union Tpke said:

Agreed. There is so much potential right after and before the peaks of the peak. Many people are under the impression that maximum service levels are being run for all of rush hour from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m.. This is not the case at all. Increasing service in these times would encourage people to travel to work earlier/later, and would reduce crowding.

Hell, even during the peak of the AM peak there's space going n/b into Queens. Measurements frm. Roosevelt:

8-8:30 11 trains

8:30-9 13 trains

9-9:30 13 trains

9:30-10 13 trains

10-10:30 11 trains 

18 minutes ago, Union Tpke said:

The only way to use this capacity is to deinterline. You could run 30 TPH from 179/JC and Queens Blvd Express/63 Street/6th Avenue local. 18  and 12 . I would run some of these s as s if Bergen L.L. were reopened. Again, you have the issue of 8/9-car  trains on the express. The platforms really need to be 10-cars long anyway.

I would love that too, but even w/in existing service patterns, there's space.  trains arrive in Queens around 8:15 and 8:40. From 8:00 to 8:30, we run 11 out of a potential 15 trains, and from 8:30 to 9 we run 13/15. Whether the terminal ops/requisite merge holds would work out, IDK, but this is worth noting.

10 minutes ago, RR503 said:

The lines getting CBTC are Lex, 63, QB-West, Crosstown, Fulton, Astoria/60th St. I'm trying to find a source for start/end points right now.

 

From the above courtesy of @Union Tpke (also @Lance can we merge these two threads?)

Quote

The Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines between Grand Concourse-149th St. in the Bronx and Nevins St. in Brooklyn

The A and C lines between Jay St.-MetroTech and Euclid Ave. in Brooklyn

The N and W lines between Ditmars Blvd. in Queens and 57th St. in Manhattan

The end of the E and F lines at Jamaica Center through Key Gardens-Union Turnpike in Queens

The F line between 21st St.-Queensbrige in Queens through 57th St. in Manhattan

The end of the G line at Court Sq. in Queens through Hoyt-Schemerhorn in Brooklyn

@Union Tpke I'm increasingly skeptical of the "no space for more service" claim. There is incremental capacity avail on QB, and if we take the Canarise estimate of 28tph capacity on 6th local to be true, there's space for 4 more s even with 10tph of . 

...is out in presentation form. 

https://new.mta.info/sites/default/files/2019-09/20-24 Capital Plan Overview.pdf#page=4

The lines getting CBTC are Lex, 63, QB-West, Crosstown, Fulton, Astoria/60th St. I'm trying to find a source for start/end points right now.

My thoughts are essentially that this is a massive amount of money. You obviously cannot glean all that much from a PowerPoint, but if SAS 2's new price tag of 6.9 billion is any guide, it seems the brakes on cost sorta came off here. I'm gonna wait to form opinions on the individual projects until we actually know what they are.

3 minutes ago, Jsunflyguy said:

That doesn't sit right that solely the GTs are the cause, if there are GTs enforcing the maximum speed for an area (not going to debate whether this speed may be technically correct) then it has to be accounted for in the run time, if its a merge close behind another train where the signal may not be readily displayed then that allowance needs to be accounted for. However, what I suspect is the other  that leaves Stillwell at 7:23 wasn't held since @CenSin only reports pass 1  train. @CenSin, is this correct or an omission?

That I could believe since the GTs would then enforce a lower speed to allow simultaneous approaches to the junction

I was just going off of the description of the  crawling into Bergen lower. It's two shots all the way from Smith-9th to there, and I doubt operators are super confident with area speeds at this point what with B4 not being used all that frequently for diversions. Merges and holds could absolutely be part of the issue, though, too. 

That merge is only an issue if you go above the few tph that's avail in Queens. 

1 hour ago, CenSin said:

My case for another service not being able to be squeezed into 6 Avenue local is because of this. Additional merges lower the total capacity. If a track had capacity for 30 train per hour, a merge would lower that to about 28 trains per hour. Another merge would lower it further. That theoretical extra 5 TPH on the 6 Avenue local after accounting for the  and  is probably really only 1~2 TPH.

See but there would not be additional merges on 6th Avenue. You'd just be throughputting more trains through the merges with the  -- which, thanks to Canarise, are known to be capable of more than they currently run. The new merge on Culver would be taking place at 15tph, or hardly enough to cause problems. 

Big thanks for the runtime info. It looks like the  lost lots of time to the GTs coming off the viaduct. 

43 minutes ago, Jsunflyguy said:

Very interested in where he's getting the 'regular interval' number from, I pulled up the Supplement and the base schedule as well as the public schedule dated from June and there have been 6 R trains since at least a year at Roosevelt between 7a-759a and there are 9 at 36/4th so I can't find the same numbers he's claiming, although its ambiguous what station he's referring to for the  since he indicates two different ones. Either way 9 trains between 8a-9a in the indicated supplement, you mind asking that guy what exactly he's talking about?? The number of trains in S1087 S01 (which is from April) = Trains in the nominated times in S180, which is the---not related to <F>---Supplement going into effect. 

Delete, transitfeeds not cooperating at the moment

I was looking for these  changes on transitfeeds earlier. Hopefully they’ll have for tomorrow..

9 minutes ago, Fan Railer said:

If they've never been through GOH, field shunts would be untampered with.

Field shunt mods came after GOH — those were done post-1995 to reduce the number of signal mods that would have to be made (lol). 

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

If capacity in Queens is the issue, why not send them to 96th St?

That interlocking isn’t set up to handle revenue service merges, there are no punchboxes.  trains have to call Queensboro to get a lineup across — the only reason the railroad doesn’t fall apart on weekends is because frequencies are relatively low. 

43 minutes ago, Jsunflyguy said:

That's more of a value question, is the amount of good you're doing on Culver offsetting the relatively empty trains that will be going from 50th St to 96th Ave. Then the future question, when---eventually---the  starts running, will you be willing to have to rescind those  trains (OMG ANOTHER NYCT SERVICE CUT) and suffer the consequences of that action?

I mean, the  certainly isn’t imminent...but yes, there’s absolutely a value question in all these Culver express proposals.

47 minutes ago, CenSin said:

Queens isn’t the issue. It’s the 6 Avenue local capacity.

Nope.  runs 9tph peak, which leaves 5tph of spare room on 6th local assuming the 28tph cap holds in the new interlockings. 

Now that said, Queens isn’t totally maxed out. I pulled the n/b  schedule at Roosevelt, and today we schedule 13 trains between 8:30 and 9, 13 between 9 and 9:30, 14 between 9:30 and 10, and 11 between 10 and 10:30. If you were creative with your scheduling and disciplined with ops, you maybe could work a train or two into there. Three questions are raised here: how to work additional AM service in on the  without reworking the entire B division (which would likely produce some nasty side effects), where to begin those runs, and of course, where to turn or clear the additions trains. 179 and Parsons already have holdouts after the AM rush, so you’d probably have to work with some more clunky terminal like Parsons. Dunno if it’s worth it. 

42 minutes ago, Jemorie said:

No it is not. RR503 is right. It is Queens capacity. During rush hours, the combined  and  run every 2 minutes (30 trains an hour) between the interlocking at Forest Hills and the interlocking at 36th Street (Queens). Plus, as I always say, it is physically impossible to run a train for more than 2 minutes apart (30 trains an hour). Technically, every non-isolated line in the system is limited to 15 trains an hour (4 minutes apart). The merge with the  in Manhattan along 6th Avenue still has room for more trains. You can also reroute those trains to SAS with the merge with the  at Lex-63rd, since the  only runs up to about 10 trains an hour (6 minutes apart).

As sad as this is, 30tph is honestly on the high end of what your average track is capable of in this system. We're really bad at ops, have some poorly laid out junctions/terminals, and our signals in many areas are garbage. There certainly are many stretches closer to 20tph maximum cap than 30. My totally unevidenced impression of SAS is that it may be one of them -- the signal blocks on that line are weirdly long, and weekend ops with the seem to produce delays. 

1 hour ago, Lawrence St said:

To clarify this . It will only run express between Church and Jay St, and will only save about 3-4 minutes right? 

Why not just start it from Kings Hwy as a put in from Coney Island Yard so local Culver service isn't affected?

7 mins savings n/b, 6 mins savings s/b. 

You can't do it that way because a) riders south of KH will definitely do this, and b) there isn't capacity in Queens to absorb the additional throughput. 

Unless an R32 or 42 somehow shows up on the , it's impossible to get a glass glare free video. As long as I'm able to read the signs...

13 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

When I created my proposal, I did not intend to have combined service between 125 and 63rd Street go above 30 trains per hour, since the line north of there was designed with 30 trains per hour. The ,  and  would all operate at 10 trains per hour and since the  and  would have a combined headway every 3 minutes and the  every 6 minutes, this would give a 2 minute headway for north of 63rd Street. However, the concerns you may have are still valid, but I felt that there wasn't any other way to do both the Bronx extension and the curve of the line west along 125th Street to accommodate 116th Street (the original plans for SAS in the 70s did not call for such a station)

Totally understand that it's hard to justify having a curve along 125 if it's only attached to the  -- you end up with a question mark-shaped route. But unless you want lower SAS to only get 10tph, I think you're pretty much forced to do it, and provide some transfer to lower SAS trains, with those trains going somewhere else. Trying to cut down on the inevitably long length of this post so am not quoting this section, but I think you're totally right to want 4 tracks south of 63 -- you just should figure out where exactly you would want to send those additional 30tph once you have them.

18 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

That was one of my main concerns of this proposal, since I intended to have this used by bus commuters coming from areas far from subway service. With the exception of two stations, each of my planned stops there would be served by connecting bus lines to far flung areas. More specifically

...

One of the reasons why I decided to build on the Amtrak ROW, aside from the cheaper option and ability to serve parts of the Bronx, is that I fear that with Metro-North service planned to serve the area, I fear that the high price of MNRR within NYC may not attract good ridership, since MNR fares do seem high for one way. I felt that subway service with $2.75 subway fare could attract additional ridership, especially for poorer folks in the area.

From a commute time minimization perspective, you want to have bus connectivity and proximate residential/commercial density, as then a good fraction of riders can walk to their destinations with only those truly traveling far having to use bus service. This also saves operating costs in the long run, given that a load shift towards this new line heavily reliant on bus connections will inevitably lead to an (expensive) increase in the number of bus service hours you have to provide. There are, of course, ways to mitigate that, but with the  and  nearby, you likely don't want to reinvent the wheel. 

As for commuter rail pricing, I think the solution here is (more) reasonably priced commuter rail service combined with faster bus access to existing rail lines. As you quite correctly identify, you can't build everything in this city, so we may as well leverage existing assets to the best we can. 

24 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Speaking of Co-op City, I proposed that both the  and  go to Co-op City is to not only to better serve the development and the NE Bronx area in general, but also eliminate the very weird crew change operations on some of these lines. A lot of my extensions were for better terminal ops. For example, since there are no crew rooms on the  at 205, the crew change is done at Bedford Park Blvd, one station south. This does add some time. With my extension for Co-op City with a crew room built onto the end of the platform, they can now end that strange crew change practice. As for the , this was for a capacity increase since a better two-track (or three track, a la Flushing-Main Street) terminal should allow for all of the  and  trains to terminate there. Currently, most trains terminate at Parkchester due to possible terminal constraints. However, with the extension, we can allow for  express service to continue past Parkchester making express stops to Pelham Bay and terminate at the new terminal with the local service.

Yeah, cutting the BPB switch off of the  should cut runtimes by a little bit. I'm not sure you want both expresses and locals going to Co-Op though. That's expensive relative to the number of riders who would opt for local  service, and it preserves the merge between  and . The nice thing about the Westchester Square rebuild is that it gives you a truly decent (ie conflict-free) terminal for  service, as well as immediate yard access. Dunno if we want to change that. 

I think having both  and  is a good idea. Just looking at existing bus ridership in the Co-Op area, the Bx28/38 have solid ridership, as do (of course) all the buses converging on PBP. 

30 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

One interesting facet of these options is that you have the  and  go to the Williamsburg Bridge and into Brooklyn. I feel that if I would send both lines into Brooklyn, I might as well start planning a new Broadway El-replacing South 4th Street Subway, which would link to the 6th Avenue and 8th Avenue Subways. For those who need Nassau Street service and will lose it from the new subway, too bad. You'll have to transfer, but then again, Lexington isn't crowded anymore.

Not entirely sure why we need a South 4th subway for the  to WillyB. What benefit do you see in replacing that infrastructure that cannot be achieved via incremental changes to the Essex/Marcy/Myrtle areas? Also, the new  would likely have a cross-platform transfer to the  at Bowery, no? I'd assume you'd put the  on the inner tracks to facilitate terminal design at Essex and then run the  on the outside. If you elect to send the  up SAS via some connection under Sara Roosevelt Park, that'd become somewhat more difficult, but at worst we're talking about crossing up and over. 

33 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

A standard headway can work, but its not just the signal that need to be worked on. Remember that we only have around 6,500 subway cars. We can only do so much with not a lot, so while a standard frequency is nice, this will have to wait for the signal modernization, and new subway cars.

I would assume that, in the midst of all this infrastructure development, we'd find some cash for new cars. 

34 minutes ago, JeremiahC99 said:

For 36th Street, I did it that way due to potential concerns about access loss. A similar plan was discussed in Random Thoughts a few months back. I tried to do everything in my power to remove most of the reverse branching that could occur which would impact merging, but I still end up creating problems. What did I do wrong? No wonder my planned  to Northern went kaput.

Maybe a 8th-53rd Express and 6th-63rd Street local can fix my mistake, and maybe open the door for any  extension. Do you think that can work

To be quite blunt, you don't always have to take people's suggestions . I think that given the operational and load balance impacts of interlining 36, we're really better of not doing so. I think doing the 8-53-local option or doing the 8-53-express option with a  extension to 36 (maybe provisioned for further development along Northern, or even built out to some extent) are both completely defensible courses of action that reflect both what's best for loads and what's best for system operability. If you do do 8-53-express, though, you've gotta extend the  -- otherwise riders at QB local stations west of Roosevelt won't be able to access Long Island City.

Pardon a dumb question: which 59 St?

I'd think carefully about this, if you have some time. What would be some useful bits of infrastructure for you to have to maintain service through disruptions? How about work trains? Or even changes to fluidize existing ops?

1 hour ago, CenSin said:

In the Manhattan-bound direction an takes 27~31 minutes to get from Kings Highway to Jay Street–MetroTech, but the can do it in 20 minutes. The express saves 7~11 minutes. What gives?

The 7th<>Church segment is scheduled 1 minute longer s/b thanks to the endless GT35s, and the Jay<>7th segment is 1.5 longer thanks to the fact that you really can't build speed/have to crawl out of Jay s/b. So runtime is 11 southbound and 8.5 northbound. 

1 hour ago, CenSin said:

How far apart are the locals and expresses?

• Brooklyn-bound at Jay Street–MetroTech: 05:19 PM
• Brooklyn-bound at Jay Street–MetroTech: 05:22 PM — arriving just 3 minutes after the local.

Both trains meet at Kings Highway at 5:48 PM. Time saved: just 3~4 minutes.

Don't look at Kings Highway. The  gets a 4 minute hold there essentially to pad the schedule -- they wanted to add runtime to reduce late clears and simplify crewing, but couldn't retime the entire line so they instead just put time at Kings Highway. It's doubtful that hold will be observed.

Looking at 18th Ave, the 16:22 179 to KHF  is 3 mins behind the 16:27 179 to STL , which had been 3.5 behind it at Jay. 

The real flaw in the  schedule is, as I remember @RTOMan saying a few months back, that it creates massive gaps in Coney Island-bound service on Culver local/south of Church. Looking at the PM rush southbound schedule along the local (which, fwiw, is a not significant trip origin -- am using Bergen as my timepoint here) there's a 20 min gap where the first express used to be, and a 23 min gap for the second one. You can use the KH trains and the  to reach the s, but even when you add those back in, you're looking at a 15 min gap following the first express at 18 Av, and a 17.5 min gap following the second. Definitely suboptimal. 

http://transitfeeds.com/p/mta/79/latest/stop/F30S/20190916 (18 Av)

http://transitfeeds.com/p/mta/79/latest/stop/F20S/20190916 (Bergen)

http://transitfeeds.com/p/mta/79/latest/stop/A41S/20190916 (Jay)

Also, if anyone happens be fanning the northbound , may I humbly submit a request for a RFW? I'm out of town for a while, and haven't ridden B4 tk. north of 4th Avenue in a long time -- I want to reconfirm that the GTs going downhill from the viaduct towards Jay St are 2 shot 35s, becoming 30s and then 25s just before Bergen lower. Help here would be much appreciated. 

2 hours ago, bobtehpanda said:

Here's a map with an extension to a more suitable terminal at Van Wyck/Lefferts:

Just to clarify, what streets are you using for your alignment? Is this system entirely elevated, or are you gonna convert AirTrain to suit mixed traffic equipment?

@JeremiahC99 you've done a good job making a cohesive plan...but I have some concerns.

Insofar as your proposed extensions, I don't like the way you're handling SAS. I've talked about this extensively in the past, but reverse-branching the  onto the  adds a merge and locks in a service pattern where SAS south of 63 and Broadway express have to compete for capacity. In other words, building out SAS per the current design will not increase core-bound track capacity. Luckily, seeing as Phase 3 has yet to be built, we have an opportunity to remedy this issue. You can send the lower portion of SAS via a new tunnel to Queens, or run it as a super-express under 2nd or 3rd Aves to the Bronx, or do something totally different. It's up to you. I just think that building infrastructure that can never reach capacity is poor planning. 

Moving north for a second, using that SAS capacity for a line along Amtrak is a highly questionable decision. The Amtrak corridor is simply not well located -- it's distant from residential density, and it is not well positioned to capture significant commercial traffic. Past SAS plans have used that ROW, yes, but they did so in order to recapture IRT lines further north. And while you'd be serving Co-Op City, you're already doing that twice over with the  and . I think given the fact that pretty much all SAS-Amtrak proposals were made in eras when the 3rd Ave el either existed or was to be imminently replaced by comparable rapid transit service, we need to recontextualize SAS in today and realize that the corridor in the Bronx that is by far most needy of transit is 3rd/Webster. Yes, it means tunneling, but I generally challenge the argument that we should build rapid transit on existing ROWs simply "because we can." There are certainly cases where existing ROWs are helpful/allow cool projects, but we also can't lose sight of the fact that transit construction does eventually have to serve a market. 

Now, there is something to be said for the Co-Op alignment insofar as it'd give those riders a fast route into Manhattan. I think, however, there are simpler ways of achieving the same thing by better leveraging the . One major issue with current ops on the line is congestion at Parkchester -- trains have to cross in front of each other, and this being New York, that rarely happens per schedule. One idea I've thrown around in the past is relocating that terminal operating to Westchester Square. You'd rebuild that stop into an express station, add a second yard lead, and then relay locals on the yard leads there instead of at Parkchester, a change that'd eliminate the conflicts (a time savings) and would also allow Co-Op riders to bypass another 2 stations on their trip to Manhattan. It's a relatively unglamorous proposal, but wanna throw it out there anyway... 

My only other major concern with your extension proposals concerns the south end of SAS. I do not follow why in the context of a plan that reduces interlining, you're creating a big tangle under the East River. I get that we have to send SAS somewhere, but we've also got to be mindful of operational considerations, too. Having SAS trains merge with the , which has just diverged from the  (at a flat junction, no less -- pretty sure those provisions at Whitehall don't allow grade separation) which is about to merge with the  which reverse branches off of the  further up the line. I suggest this as an alternative:

-  to Fulton Local

- End  service to WTC, and route both the  and the  to the Williamsburg Bridge

- Run  service from 101 St to Essex St, which you'd rebuild to allow s to terminate while  service proceeds to Brooklyn

- Either stub-end SAS in Lower Manhattan with provisions for future expansion, replace  on Fulton with SAS, replace  on 4th Avenue with some connection between SAS and Nassau around Bowery, or do the thing Vanshnook proposed where SAS goes to the Manhattan Bridge,  to Williamsburg, etc. You'd end up with  back at WTC, but I think we can live with that. 

...and just like that, you have no merges. 

A much more minor thing is you may not want to build out to Little Neck with 3 tracks. It's expensive, and I'm not sure how many people would benefit from express service beginning that far out vs increased frequency. 

On the operational end, I think you've gotta have a standard frequency. Make all your services run at 15tph, and be done with it -- merges will work better, and you won't be forced to schedule gaps in service to accommodate mixing frequencies. Provided you have a halfway decent signal system, it should work out. 

Another ops concern of mine is the junction at 36 St. As you've designed service, you essentially end up just recreating 59 St, but on a corridor with higher ridership. Not sure you wanna do that -- I'd seriously consider either doing 8-53-local and 6-63-express, or doing LGA's thing where we extend the  to 36 St to allow for the reverse of the previous plan. 

Finally, I'd consider thinking about small(er) scale investments you think would go well with your plan. More yard capacity? Better terminals? New short-turn facilities? New switches for useful reroutes? New transfers? The details really end up mattering.

1 hour ago, Lex said:

That's exactly it. The main impediment to any such installation is the need to move some of those buildings currently occupying the space.

There exists space for a center track, just not platforms abutting a center track. It’d be like the Astoria line. 

 to Lefferts is a pretty demonstrable net benefit to Lefferts riders, but between the cost of operation and the “we don’t like change” resistance to everything in this city, will likely not happen. 

Honestly I think that if we’re gonna have RBB, it’s better off as a subway — if only because RBB-Jackson Heights is super easy via QB local and integration with the  is simplified. 

On 9/10/2019 at 7:02 PM, JeremiahC99 said:

On the subject of the bypass, with the resignalling of the 63rd Street Tunnel as part of Fast Forward, I was proposing that for the 63rd Street service, the  be 15 trains, 10 for the Second 6th Avenue service, and another 12 for the bypass service. As mentioned before, the slot for the  would be replaced by a second 8th Avenue service. That gives us 37 trains per hour, out of the new signal capacity of 40 trains. However, even with the Chrystie Street service rerouted to Culver (this service would be scheduled as part of the , you may still have your concerns unaddressed.

I would not be at all surprised if 63 St could do 40tph with CBTC -- it has good geometry and low dwells. Thing is, that 40tph number is essentially unsustainable with merges. Making sure trains arrive within literal seconds of schedule is hard enough on any high frequency railroad; throw in a merge with related issues of diverging/converging speed, home signal approaches and schedule jitter across multiple corridors, and your capacity is reduced. In essence, to take advantage of the capabilities of CBTC, you have to simplify the network so that those issues go away. As such, I'd leave the bypass for a future tunnel, or articulate some case for making all QB local service . 

On 9/10/2019 at 7:02 PM, JeremiahC99 said:

For Rockaway Beach service, I have plans to connect two of its stations to the existing line stations. My proposed Liberty Avenue station would have a passageway to the 104th Street station on the  and my proposed Brooklyn Manor-Jamaica Avenue stations would have a connection to the  at 104th Street. The Woodhaven Junction station on the LIRR Atlantic Branch would be reopened with a passageway to my proposed Atlantic Avenue station. These three connections would allow for connectivity to the existing subway and LIRR systems. However, I believed that the branch would be reactivated because of the travel times to Manhattan. Yes we could have the  service Lefferts in a way and iron out all the timers, but the  would still have to travel through a substantial part of Brooklyn, making a lot of stops before reaching Lower Manhattan and then Midtown.

I would hope that the / /LIRR connections work, it's just that they wouldn't be the easiest transfers in the world. I want to stress that I don't necessarily think that the RBB is a bad idea, just that we have to be careful to either target it towards crosstown travel or provide adequate Midtown cap on QB. 

7 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

But the harder sell is going to be running all QB locals via 53rd and all expresses via 63rd. The biggest problems with 63rd are its “out-of-the-way” location and widely spaced stations with lack of in-system transfers (other than the ). That’s probably due to the MTA’s original intention in 1968 to make it the Manhattan point of entry for the Queens Super Express. And I feel that rerouting all QB express service into 63rd is just not going to go well with QB express riders, especially those who transfer to the Lex. A 59-63 passageway is key to getting this to work, because the current OOS transfer is not going to cut it. People will just bail on the locals at Roosevelt. Or gripe heavily about how long it takes to get to Lex. This is my biggest concern with a fully deinterlined QBL. Personally, I like that @LaGuardia Link N Tra‘s plan has QB local trains running via 63rd and 6th and QB express trains via 53rd and 8th, because the express is the more popular service.

I also think that 59-63 is critical for deinterlining, but I do wanna push back a bit here. 53 > 63, yes, but 6 > 8. 6th Ave is *the* heart of Midtown; while 8th ridership will grow with the development happening over there, I don't think we should think of the 6th-63 pairing as a weak O/D source. Moreover, one of the more attractive properties of the 53-local plan is precisely that it links 53 with the local tracks. Returning to the issue of load balancing and capacity, it may very well be in our best interests to not give riders what they want here in order to spread loads, reduce dwells, etc. 

7 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

There would still be a reverse branch of the  if it moved over to 8th Avenue, like you proposed in the past. Though it would still be better than splitting the  back into the separate  and  services, because of how popular the connection to Midtown has become. 

I don't follow this. If you deinterline Queens and do 8th local-Jamaica, you should get 2 services over there...or are you assuming that we keep WTC open?

I would assume whatever service replaces  in our dreamworld deinterlining plans would simply run down the RBB; I don't see that corridor as an impediment to deinterlining or vice versa. Yeah, you're adding a merge, but it's far from the core and (hopefully) in the context of a much less interlined system so...eh. Line length, though, would be a very real question. 

17 minutes ago, paulrivera said:

We’re both wrong.

Supplement says every 20 minutes.

It's running every 10 on both Saturday and Sunday. Should be...fun to see what happens at Bway Jct. I see they've scheduled Js and Ls within 30 seconds of each other during the evenings...

http://transitfeeds.com/p/mta/886/latest/route/L/20190914

http://transitfeeds.com/p/mta/886/latest/stop/J27S/20190914

18 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

Well you are actually correct that the non-stop, bypass may not be necessary today. As for intra-borough trips, I feel that the way the subway may be could make it impossible without additional tunneling, and my upcoming grand master plan aims to reduce tunneling costs as much as possible, only doing so where it is absolutely necessary. I do feel that with some subway extensions further out from Downtown Jamaica, the bus service can be rerouted away from Downtown Jamaica and can be instead rerouted to radiate around Downtown Jamaica and serve that intra-borough demand. However, a  extension from Main Street via Parsons Blvd could set the stage for some direct Bronx-Queens service, especially since the Q44 bus between the two boroughs appears to be popular to the local community (I did not incorporate this plan yet).

Given the relative densities of demand on crosstown vs core-bound corridors, I think your approach to the issue is sound -- crosstowns get upgraded buses (or LRT) and subways where the demand exists/ROW does. I do not think your  plan is a good idea, though. You're much better off extending it further out along Roosevelt or up towards Whitestone. As the  has shown us, mixing types of demand doesn't work out well in the long run. 

18 hours ago, JeremiahC99 said:

One of my current plans for the bypass is to connect it to a reactivated Rockaway Beach Branch, since there has been interest on restoring it for faster service to Manhattan. While the Q52/53 buses are available nearby on Woodhaven Blvd, it connects to the overcrowded Queens Blvd Subway, does require a transfer (which uses up the free transfer), and its Select Bus Service implementation has been subject to controversy. A new rail line on the branch would possibly provide a faster route to Midtown for Richmond Hill residents. In my plans, I have it connected to the bypass, with a station at Woodside-61st Street. It would then merge with a resignalled 63rd Street Line and take advantage of the extra capacity of the planned Second Avenue Subway. It is of note that the existing signalling system can handle at most 30 trains per hour. With a new Signal system, that number goes up to 40, increasing capacity. However, some lines, due to physical obstacles and the sad realities of crowding, may never reach 40 trains. Assuming 95% of the capacity can be realistically used up before delays incur, the realistic max capacities would be 28 trains on the old signalling and 38 on the CBTC system.

I just did it this way since I feel that it would be cheaper than if you tunneled under Yellowstone Blvd to connect to the Queens Blvd Line or tunneled under 66th Avenue to Queens Blvd. After all, I feel that constructing on an existing ROW would be cheaper to do (I also plan to do the same thing for the  extension to SE Queens). The tunneling under Yellowstone would come at a later date.

As for stations, I am mulling on adding a station at 63rd Drive, where a station on the LIRR once existed. Q38 bus riders could transfer at this location instead of the Queens Blvd. Grand Avenue could be another candidate for connections with the also-popular Q58 and Q59 bus lines as well. Stops in Sunnyside would also be considered as well, with one at 39th Street and another at 48th Street. This should cater to some of the intraborough bus ridership, and allow for some connectivity to neighborhood buses. 

Once I have the time, the master plan will be released, but any feedback is welcome for these plans.

Should the Bypass have stops? Yes. Should it be a priority? No. Should it be connected to the RBB? f**k no. 

The current issues with Queens capacity has everything to do with service patterns and operations and little to do with the absence of a bypass -- especially if you're seeing our infrastructure issues through a minimally interventionist systems management lens. We have 3 B Division tunnels under the East River; it would stand to reason that each could run 30tph for a total of 90tph under the river. Today, we run 25 via 60th, 25 via 53rd and 15 via 63rd for a grand total of...wait for it...65tph, or 72% capacity. The loads that use that capacity are themselves not evenly distributed. Express trains and the  carry (more) than their fair share of Manhattan-bound passengers, while the locals run relatively empty. With these problems in mind, priority one for Queens should be a) addressing the operational factors that limit us to such a low capacity figure, and b) addressing the load imbalance.

The first issue comes down to Forest Hills, Astoria and 63rd St. The former two terminals have been discussed extensively on the forum, so I'll continue w/o elaboration. The latter issue gets to the crux of the problem with any Bypass plan that precedes new river tunnels: 63 St doesn't have to run below capacity. Provided the cars, I could, tomorrow, reroute the  via 63 St, the  to Astoria, and add a new 53 St-8th Ave service to fill the 's gap in Queens...and voila, I've just filled the capacity 'hole' in 63 without adding new lines. It's worth noting here, too, that in the long run, capacity is inversely proportional to the complexity of routes, which is to say that we're never going to achieve 40tph service levels if our system is as extensively interlined as it is today. Even internationally, 32tph seems to be the max with reverse branching, and that's without some of NYCT's more conservative design assumptions regarding CBTC.

The second issue is all service patterns. All  train destinations are duplicated by an express service, and most  train destinations are a short walk from an  stop (the  exception being the  transfer at Lex-59). If you can 'untangle' local and express destinations and thus incentivize people to stay on local trains, you've basically won the battle. The most common (and my preferred way) of undertaking this is to send all QB local trains to 53 St and then 8th Ave, while expresses run via 63 and 6th Ave. There are other permutations of these service patterns (some, like @LaGuardia Link N Tra's above, requiring concurrent investment), but the general idea holds through. Point being, if you implement such a service pattern, you've just massively increased your effective capacity. 

Let's now talk about the Bypass. Given the expense of adding more infrastructure, and the fact that adding a Bypass without a new underriver tunnel forces interlining in Queens (how are you going to replace the  if half your 63 cap is going to the Bypass?), I would argue that simply leveraging current infrastructure to the best of our abilities is the best choice here. Yeah, it'll cost the riders some time, but for the long term health of our system minimizing interlining and maximizing the value of current facilities is the generally accepted approach; you can achieve relief of express trains without having to make big spends.

(Now, you could in theory still deinterline with a Bypass by giving QB local back to the , but I daresay the issues with that take are somewhat self-evident) 

Finally, the RBB. The RBB is something I've always been on the fence about. Yes, it's there, and relatively easy to build, but building for the sake thereof isn't wise. We've gotta ask what markets it'd actually be serving. There certainly is a strong Queens crosstown market in the area, but I (and others) question just how well the RBB can serve that market given that key intersecting lines (like the  and  don't have super easy transfers to/from the corridor. Likewise, while business activity does follow the nearby Woodhaven Boulevard corridor, there is sometimes a good distance between the RBB and those activity centers -- are we *sure* that the RBB is the best option we have here? I'm quite happy to be proven wrong in my doubts here, but as I said, we've gotta be methodical. 

Insofar as Manhattan access to the Rockaways is concerned, any argument that uses today's  train as an inflexible baseline condition is doing itself a disservice. Rockaway frequency can be enhanced by extending the  to Lefferts (or building out the portion of the Fulton line that would have carried s directly to the Rockaway line, thus allowing s to serve Lefferts alone and s to go to the Rockaways without any merge issues). Likewise, travel speed on the  today is limited by extensive grade time installations -- many of which date back to the installation of the original signal system -- as well as merge interactions. If you smooth those out, you get a better, faster Midtown-bound line at a fraction of what it would cost to run the RBB to the Bypass. And this is, of course, before we consider the opportunity cost of using Bypass cap for the RBB rather than for where the actual travel density is -- ie Jamaica. 

So I see I've written quite the wall of text here. I'll stop now. My apologies. 

2 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

Even if the  stops on two new outer tracks, like @LaGuardia Link N Tra proposed up thread? Wouldn’t that make pretty much any QBL de-interlining plan that doesn’t have QB locals via 53rd a non-starter?

Yes, my apologies for not being clearer. LGA's plan makes this work. 

3 hours ago, R68OnBroadway said:

Couldn’t you run the  express and  local by swapping their roles south of west 4th? (I’m not advocating for this, this is just a random thought I had).

The swap would help with terminal capacity assuming you’re running Queens trains local on 8th, though Culver riders wouldn’t be happy. The bigger impediment to the plan generally speaking though is the fact that local-63 cuts off QB local from LIC, which is a non starter.