jammerbot

I just want to add some thoughts re: the conversation as to whether or not the MTA should be free. It should. Public transit, much like public education and other public services, was never meant to generate revenue. Now, the concept of fairbox recovery is a useful one, but consider what the NYC metro area would look like without the MTA. The entire economy would be shocked and shot. There's another form of public transit we don't talk about: roads. Most roads, which have the same utility as our busses and subways, are not tolled. Only the roads that are exceptionally expensive to maitain such as bridges and tunnels are tolled (analogous to railroad and express busses). This sort of connects to the discussion on congestion pricing. When our city imposes a fare on the most economical, environmentally friendly, and efficient way to move people but subsidizes the least economical, most environmentally costly, and least efficient way to move people, it sends a message about our city's priorities. I would like to live in a future NYC where public transit is the logical default, and I think that would involve either a zero-fair scheme or an equivalent (if not costlier) fare for vehicles (and yes, I understand that drivers have to make car payments and insurance payments, but that is one of the downsides of not choosing the public system). Tl;dr: Economic policies can spur or deter behaviors. If we want to see a healthier, friendlier, and more pleasant NYC, we have to begin envisioning an MTA without fares.

Yes, this is a good idea, especially considering how much use the Q52 and Q53 get. However, 36 has so much focus in this forum right now, because the conversation with QB is focused on deinterlining.

What a cool idea! I have nothing to contribute, but I would like to bump this post.

Makes sense! 36 St should definitely be an express station for that reason. Also, I never heard of this DeKalb Fulton connection proposal. How long has this idea been circulating?

Sorry, out of the loop, what is the issue with how the QBL-63 St connection was made? Thanks!

Interesting. Why did they turn at Hewes and not Marcy? I assumed that in a situation like this, they would use the switches east of Marcy to turn trains around, making their last stop at Marcy.

Random thought: how intensive (labor-wise, engineering-wise, cost-wise) is it to add more switches? I was looking at the track map and wondering why there aren’t switches north of Bay Parkway on the West End, but there are switches south of the station. Local to express switches just north of the station would allow for easy short-turns via the center track, which would allow for more service, for example.

I’ve found some success on MS Paint if you have microsoft and patience… lol. No expertise on Photoshop specifically, but I think Illustrator is your better bet if you are trying to make maps and system diagrams

My thought to address exactly this is to have the southbound trains drop out after Ave X. You can't really insert a northbound train before Ave X without introducing a nasty at-grade crossing. Side note: why is it that some of the most poorly planned parts of the system tend to be BMT? Or am I wrong and there are examples of shortsighted IND planning?

Oh wow! Are there any pics of it around?

You posted this on the photos sub-forum, just so you know! There's a relatively lively discussion about the -to-the-sea on the Random Thoughts page of the main Subway sub-forum.

I’ll take the hypebeast L over some of the other wraps ive seen before

Interesting. Maybe having a few s run down Culver to Coney Island-Stillwell and also running these select trains on the Queens Blvd Express to Jamaica-179 St can not only prove the s usefulness but also ameliorate some of those issues at Church Av? You don't have to do both, of course, but I think it would be a helpful addition of service.

I tend to agree. The being unreliable is a self-fulfilling prophecy when the route is truncated and the headways are long and the sets are short. I would love to see the MTA pilot a rush hour special version of the [perhaps signed up as a diamond G rather than because the riding public is currently more accustomed to diamonds than double letters (however, the diamond is strictly used to denote express, so we wouldn't want to confuse people that way either)] that runs from Coney Island-Stillwell Av all the way to Jamaica-179 St or Jamaica Center (to avoid worsening terminal issues at 71 Av).

Ah, makes perfect sense now, looking at the track diagram. I wonder why they built the junction that way. You don't really get that much more flexibility by having the make the ridiculous curve just to meet up at Grand Concourse. Let's say it was instead built at a nice gradual curve to meet up with the at 3 Av instead. You still have ample opportunity to transfer to the . The merge at E 180 does look problematic, but could you elaborate when you get a chance? I'm curious what specifically is the issue there.

Why exactly does the skip 138 St-Grand Concourse in the peak direction during rush hours? Is it just a matter of skipping a stop to save a bit of time?

Let's suppose, for kicks, the north half of the Manhattan Bridge was closed for track work and signal repairs. service runs via the line from Coney Island-Stillwell Av to Atlantic Av-Barclays Center, making stops at DeKalb Av, Jay St-Metrotech, and Court St. Runs as normal to Astoria-Ditmars Blvd. Rationale: West End service to Manhattan is needed, and although access to IND 6 Av from the BMT 4 Av is cut off by the bridge work, IND 6 Av and BMT Broadway stations are close enough to be reasonable for most riders. service runs via the line from Chambers St-WTC to West 4 St-Washington Sq and as normal to Harlem-145 St and Bedford Park Blvd. service run express from Chambers St-WTC to 34 St-Penn Station. Rationale: A second Central Park West local service is needed, as well as extra rush hour service along Grand Concourse. Additional trains run express from Brighton Beach to Prospect Park marked as . There is no service in Brooklyn. Rationale: Brighton Express service is needed. service begins at 2 Av and runs as normal to Norwood-205 St. Rationale: Express service is needed on IND 6 Av, and service is needed on Grand Concourse, as well as another express on Central Park West. Potential issues: the merge just north of W 4 St on the IND 6 Av will get very messy. Also, there's no service at Grand St. I had another idea where the would take over Grand Concourse along with the as is proposed above, with no service at all (or we label it as , but it's the same thing as the above). This leaves 6 Av Express and CPW Express down one service, however.

I'm also intrigued by the idea of routing the via a new SAS, as well as repurposing Nassau St below Chambers St into part of the SAS.

I believe the main issue with the Williamsburg Bridge is capacity. Let's look at the official MTA timetables for both services on the bridge. Between 7 and 8 AM, the northbound track on the bridge has to deal with 8 trains, 1 trains, and 6 trains. On second thought, that's 15 trains per hour, which doesn't sound like too much. But I suppose with the curves leading up to the bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge has lower capacity than, say, the northbound track of the Cranberry St tubes, which fields 12 trains and 7 trains during the same 7-8AM rush. Then again, the MTA doesn't just fill capacity for capacity sake. Maybe the trains have more demand than the trains. Just some thoughts here.

While I have no idea what the logistics would be, I always think increasing subway access to Coney Island, both Rockaway Branches, and Pelham Bay during the summers is a good idea. How many people an extended Crosstown would pick up is debatable though. Maybe if you ran QBL, Crosstown, and Culver to Coney Island? Idk. I also thought of increased D or N service that runs through Stillwell via the N platform and uses Brighton Beach as a southern terminal, since terminal capacity is low at Stillwell.

I had an idea for how to use capacity on a full SAS to ease the Williamsburg bridge and solve merge issues on the BMT Jamaica. A few things need to be said first: 1) obviously the much easier solution to the merge with the is to construct a flyover. That, however, does not fix the Williamsburg bridge congestion. 2) by full SAS, I mean what I envision as the only possible four track SAS: Phases 3 and 4 are built with four tracks and somewhere along the way the express tracks are extended under the current SAS tracks with one or two stations to keep costs low. I would have the and run local to 125, meaning we can have two full length express services to 125/beyond and one local service that terminates at or before 55 st (to leave room for the ). Okay, now that context is laid, my proposal is to restore a succession to the Myrtle Elevated and route it to SAS. The elevated would follow Myrtle, stopping at Marcy Av for a transfer with the Crosstown, and then curve up Nostrand. This would clip a bit of the building on the NE corner of Myrtle and Nostrand, which is minimal considering the rest of the buildings nearby are mostly housing and this building I believe isn’t. The el will continue up Nostrand to Park Av and curve onto Park Av. The curve would start after the track is already fully over the intersection, using the bus depot at the NW corner for space so as to avoid clipping the SW building. From there, the el will continue down Park, with a stop at Bedford, and slip under the BQE, portalling into subway, stopping at Washington, Carlton, and Gold. From here, the subway would link up at Metrotech and Boro Hall and continue down a new tunnel that links up to the SAS local to meet the . This M would be turqoise, and terminate at 55 St using a small below grade four track layup yard. What do you think?

I’m surprised this is NOT obvious. We’re talking about why OPTO should be a thing as if a good amount of people on this forum aren’t operators themselves who could give a s**t less if the agency saves some money if it’s at the expense of their safety (I think the TOs are justified 100% here) and operational safety (I say operational safety because there’s no way one operator should have to handle an onboard emergency without a partner). If we are really concerned about long term safety, how about we do something about the MTA’s exorbitant amount of debt? Modify the legislation to let the MTA default on any private loan that it has paid greater or equal interest as is the original principal. Create a public bank of NY that raises funds for public projects and offers interest free loans. Clean up the contracting process and create/expand an in house construction team to keep capital construction costs low. Out of all the many fat cats to squeeze for savings— why do we choose the TOs?

Why is OPTO even seen as desirable? This whole thread seems to take that assumption as truth.

I think the down Utica is smart. For people rightfully pointing out the lack of service north of Utica, maybe a tram could be used? I was also thinking that Bedford-Nostrand could use a tram because the B44 is always crowded. (Veering off topic but just curious what peoples thoughts are).

Meaningless China bashing. I agree with Via Garibaldi 8 that we need to manufacture more things here, but I think "CCP is taking over America" is two hops and a skip away from far right conspiracy thinking.