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.

On 3/22/2022 at 1:51 PM, BreeddekalbL said:

Since you guys are talking about making a qb station into express, are you forgetting that woodhaven has an existing provision to where it can be converted into an express station? id say its time for them to use it.

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.

5 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

This is how QBL looks with the 63 St connection. The issue with this is the 's first stop along QBL from 21 St-Queensbridge is Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Av, a whole 6 stations apart with no transfers to other lines east of it. If 36 St was converted to be an express station, Jackson Heights wouldn't be such a transfer issue as everyone would be able to transfer at 36 St instead.

By the way, I decided to make an edit of how a Dekalb-Lafayette Av connection would look like without Lafayette Av being converted.

Honestly, if the station was moved down a bit, maybe it would be easier to allow for such connection to happen since the Crosstown line is already making it cut a little close.

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?

3 hours ago, T to Dyre Avenue said:

The SAS connection is probably the best option. The problem is that it will take billions of dollars to construct and decades to get built, given how much more new subway in Manhattan would have to be built first. I already doubt the MTA's commitment to building SAS Phases 3 and 4, let alone a new East River tunnel between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights.

It's true that clearing the  might be a bit of a challenge if connecting between DeKalb and Lafayette. But definitely not as challenging as a Montague-Schermerhorn connection would be. I honestly think the QBL-63rd connection was done in a way that should not be repeated throughout the system. So if a connection between DeKalb and Lafayette is ever considered, then the possibility of converting Lafayette Ave into an express station should also be looked at. We already see what a challenge it is whenever anyone suggests untangling QBL because the 63rd St connection diverges at a local station (36th St). In both Lafayette's and 36th's cases, neither station was designed to be readily converted to an express station, like Woodhaven Blvd. But I noticed something interesting between Lafayette and Clinton-Washington - the tunnel widens and there is a middle track. I wonder how difficult it would be to repurpose that stretch of the tunnel into a new express station to facilitate cross-platform transfers between  express trains and  local trains. 

3 hours ago, Vulturious said:

That's not a bad idea, there definitely shouldn't be a repeat of QBL-63 St connection in this scenario. Although, I don't know how well a conversion of Lafayette Av will be. Maybe it is better to go for a new connection from Montague St to old Court St. Especially with how the  runs currently now and even before, I think we can get away with building a new connection. However, that could still hinder  service in the process so I don't know.

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

On 3/12/2022 at 7:51 PM, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

Part Suspended

There is no Manhattan-bound service from Brooklyn into Manhattan while we work to address a switch problem near Delancey St-Essex St.

Manhattan-bound trains will end at Hewes St.

 

Expect delays in service in both directions.

 

Alternatives

For service between Brooklyn and Manhattan, take trains. Transfer at Broadway Junction from trains and Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs from trains.

 

For service between Kosciuszko St and Marcy Av, take B46 buses.

 

For service between Marcy Av and Delancey St-Essex St, take B39 buses.

 

Posted: 03/12/2022 07:35PM

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.

15 minutes ago, ActiveCity said:

How does one photoshop an MTA map?

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

56 minutes ago, MTA Bus said:

The only issue is Stillwell isn’t gonna be able to handle the  and the   together. It can barley handle the  now lol

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?

3 minutes ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

The wrapped train is already tagged 🤣

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.

2 minutes ago, Vulturious said:

It's honestly refreshing to see something other than just some bland looking train as well as the NYS Wrap. 

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

Just now, darkstar8983 said:

The issue of running the  on Queens Blvd is the terminal operations at 71 Av. Turning the  and  nerfs the capacity of the local tracks to 19-20 trains per hour, including thru-running ones. The same issue is prevalent at Church Av. The  train fumigation delays the  and worsens the train bunching on Culver. The limited express service has made the headways worse because now the local service is not as evenly spaced and the express is sparse. If the express / local split was more or less even, then some degree of consistency would be available on the lower Culver Line. But then it may also mess up train spacing on 6 Av, and eventually Queens Blvd

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.

4 minutes ago, CenSin said:

I mean… that much should be obvious. But the isn’t faster in practice because it’s neutered. Hence, even when I had to travel between Brooklyn and Queens, I took any train but the . It’s a neglected market.

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).

58 minutes ago, Calvin said:

It's to avoid train traffic with incoming #  trains stopping at the station. Avoiding bunching from one another.

57 minutes ago, 4 via Mosholu said:

They do this because of the limitation with the Mosholu interlocking south of 149 on the Bronx Park level and the merge from the Bronx Park which affects the train. The cause is further up north at the Jackson Avenue interlocking on the Bronx Park side. There was a time that the train bypassed 138 as well, but that was later given to the train to do. It is just not ideal because all the stops north of 149 on the train have more passenger volume.

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.

On 8/4/2021 at 10:33 PM, Caelestor said:

The BMT through Midtown is currently not at its full capacity. Broadway is under capacity because of the  express to local merge at 34 St, and the 8 Ave Line only has 3 services. While it can be argued that 8 Ave doesn't need its 4th service at the moment, Broadway really needs to be decongested and so the  needs to be sent up 63 St in some manner. My preference is to send it to 96 St, but I can understand rerouting it to QBL since the  will serve Astoria full-time and the WTC - QB  service may not be available due to budget reasons.

The  is definitely more useful than the  but long-term it restricts capacity along the Rutgers tunnel and so there should be some long-term discussions on rerouting the Jamaica Line uptown, perhaps up 2 Ave. It may be the only way to add new trunk capacity through Midtown, as the key impediment to adding a new trunk line has always been a new East River crossing. With lower Nassau St temporarily removed from service, the line can be rehabilitated to link up to a 2 Ave express line or a 3 Ave relief line instead. There could also be a discussion on sending the Broadway local at Whitehall St onto the Fulton St local and connecting Nassau St to the 4 Ave local full time.

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.

11 hours ago, Amiri the subway guy said:

Here’s a question why do people want the SAS on the Manhattan bridge. Whats do y’all got against the current  layout. Why do y’all hate the  on Williamburg it’s very historical  people never had a problem with this layout. South Brooklyn likes 6th Avenue and Broadway services. North Brooklyn likes the Nassau street via  and 6th Avenue via  What’s wrong with a Fulton street connection it would be much cheaper  

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.

Just now, Lawrence St said:

Anyone else think that extending the to Coney Island during summer weekends is worth it?

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?

10 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Until the sole crew member gets sick, is a crime victim, or a blackout occurs, and the  gets sued in a court of law. If the agency loses the suit all taxpayers end up paying. Just thought I'd bring that point out.  They used to have a class in RTO called Panic and Evacuation . Something to think about that's not so obvious. Carry on.

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).

On 4/24/2021 at 11:25 AM, XcelsiorBoii4888 said:

The majority of yall still dont understand what the CCP is doing to America. This is nothing short of that. Why you think it was free at charge and needed no approval? I'm just fake news though...my post will get debunked soon anyways with "manipulative logic". 

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.