ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ

From what I read, Hochul seemed to imply she wanted to do the Crosstown as a continuation of Phase II, which would be great, though ofc who knows what things will look like in 8-10 years; good chance it gets pushed off a bit like SAS Phase II. I will say though no real mention of Phase III of SAS - at this point crosstown extension seems like the favorite after Phase II, and while I'd love for both, I agree that Crosstown is probably more needed. I honestly think both MTA and politicians really want to avoid Phase III as much as possible because it's price tag would be absolutely insane - 6 stations in midtown Manhattan, multiple potential transfers, ect. I hope MTA will seriously consider multiple variants of the crosstown including one that ends at 8th Avenue, one that goes all the way to connect with the , and one that tries to tie into 8th Avenue/CPW.

Yes, and I could imagine if political actors try to get too involved in these projects, they may end up just making things worse (i.e. adding extra branches onto already constrained lines). I feel like there'd have to be a larger shift in America towards Government really only being seen as a money approver, and letting agencies and those who know best do their job in peace.

A large part of SAS is to relieve overcrowding on the Lexington Avenue Subway. While Phase I and II will do that, long term if NYC continues to grow, the will still suffer from overcrowding because they basically serve a large swath of the Bronx on their own. Sure the runs on White Plains Road, but is clearly the favored service on weekdays. In the long run (like 50-60 years), the city will still be forced to do something to solve overcrowding from the Bronx branches. Honestly if growth continues as is (big if), there are a lot of subway lines that are going to have capacity issues like and . And if the city sees subway capacity constraints as being a limiting factor for growth, they'll likely be more willing to persue projects.

Is the MTA's current plan with the R211 to replace the entire train fleet with R211, or just to replace all the R46 on the with R211? Also, is it assumed that MTA won't give the R211 to any other line until it's done being rolled out on the . I feel like being signed as an is part of the R211's identity at this point.

I will say despite all the issues, seeing an R211 on the is a much more normal occurrence; people no longer look at it weirdly or with awe when it pulls into the station, and it's never filled with railfans taking photos. It's like officially part of the family.

Have always liked the commuter rail vibes of Baychester (I mean Dyre Av was formerly a commuter rail line lol). The mature tress (by NYC standards) towering over the platform; just a nice break from typical above ground IRT station.

After so many bad experiences, I've become increasingly a supporter of bifurcating the such that one runs from Whitehall St South Ferry - Forest Hills, and the other runs from Canal St (on Nassau Line) to Bay Ridge 95 St. I think part of the reason has spotty headways is because there are too many merges and Chokepoints. This about it: 1. Forest Hills is not a great Terminal Station. Especially before when it was shared with things could get backed up 2. Merging from 60th St tunnel onto QBLVD with . 60th St tunnel has 3 services, and the whole system of merging onto QBLVD with the is pretty complex and notorious for causing backups, especially cause in normal times, the itself also has to deal with the , and the has to deal with the . 3. train crossover at 34th St. Can easily force an train to wait a couple extra minutes. 4. terminating at Whitehall St. There have been multiples times I've been in a northbound waiting for the to leave (I don't understand why it can't just enter the station cause only uses middle track to terminate), but can make the wait like 5 minutes. 5. DeKalb Junction. Even though in normal service the is technically grade-separated from everything else, it's still a slow junction and often times will run local which adds another merge point All this adds up to quite a lot of opportunities to build up service gaps that are hard to recover from.

I feel like an train loop would be a navigational nightmare, especially for tourists. And on weekends when there's services changes, it would just become more confusing.

Honestly, this is the argument that SAS should've been built with 4 tracks (or at least clear provisions for 4 tracks) from the start. The current proposal forces an awkward reverse branch as is between the and , and then as you state you can't have both a full capacity Bronx branch and 125 St branch. The current plan also has the downstream affect of locking in the terrible train crossover if/when the begins operations. To be fair though, I don't think a Crosstown or a Bronx branch would ever warrant the ridership for anything close to 30tph so even in a hypothetical world where both a Bronx and Crosstown branch rebuilt, the line would probably operate fine. It just forces more interlining. I really wish this city could think big again when it comes to public infrastructure. The best way to do this in the US would be to lump a bunch of subway projects together into one big project that is politically marketable, similar to the "Grand Paris Express" in Paris or sort of like what Biden's infrastructure bill did at a national level.

Honestly, I always think it's a bit unique how the MTA labels short routes as "shuttles" . In most cities, short lines are just assigned a normal colour/letter/name like any other line, Examples include Waterloo & City line in London or the Yellow Line in Chicago

Ye internally the MTA designates the as a variant of the train for anything, however, on the front end in how they present to customers, MTA often lumps together but keeps and distinct. Also at least one of terminal is distinct from the , so the is more of it's own train than the which rlly could just be a imo. Also from my understanding while and share a fleet, my understanding is and swap far more regularly likely in part because the only runs one direction and it's easier to swap on the NTTs rather than having to change all the rollsigns on an R46/R68

I feel like there are different levels: 1. Cases like the , , or where both services share the same everything, just one runs express. 2. Cases like where a fleet is shared and internally the MTA sometimes combines them but they are somewhat distinct routes 3. Cases like the or where trains use similar/the same yards there is some overlap in the routes, and there is sometimes overlap in fleet during weekend service changes, delays and stuff.

Are they repainting all the exposed IRT columns blue now? I've always liked the diversity in colour.

I think there's blood on a lot of people's hands here, both D and R. Cuomo essentially gave up on further advancing SAS once Phase I opened. Trump talked a lot about infrastructure investments (including SAS), but was never proactive behind the scenes about trying to get it done, in large part because much of the Republican Party opposed large scale federal infrastructure investments and Trump didn't want to work with Ds (and to a lesser extent vise-versa). In the bipartisan infrastructure bill which ultimately gave SAS Phase II funding, originally Dems wanted a much larger share of the money for public transit, but they compromised with Rs to get it passed. To be fair though, not sure even if BBB was passed or a larger share was allocated to public transit in the bipartisan infrastructure bill if we'd see any more expansion investment in NYC subway because it seems a large part of our problem is there's not enough willpower in state politics.

Conference Schumer, Hochul, Buttigieg, O' Lieber, and several other political figures just held a press conference/signing ceremony on SAS Phase II right outside Harlem-125 St Metro North station. Nothing too notable: basic summary is that with the federal contribution of 3.4 billion dollars, the project is officially fully funded and is basically 100% guaranteed to happen. Glad to see Buttigieg acknowledge even though it's an expensive project, it's still really effective on a cost/rider basis compared to many other projects around the Country. Other than that it was mostly politics, with some of them patting each other on the back for other recent/current transit projects and also digs at the Trump administration for contributing to the delay.