Infamous85

Spotted an Xcelsior Charge in Central Islip this morning. Interesting. Another dash cam capture, I see MTA buses out here almost daily with the occasional NICE & DC Metrobus thrown in:

Is the entire QBL being outfitted with CBTC? The map I’ve seen only shows part of the line.

Where there’s a will there’s a way lol. There has to be a theoretical max size for these ships, there’s only so much you can dredge before these ships are scraping the bottom of the Verrazano/Bayonne. Even if some section of these tunnels had to be partially replaced in the very distant future to accommodate newer classes of jumbo ships it’d still be worth it, especially at non-MTA construction costs. Other countries are tunneling through dozens of miles of mountainous terrain, we should be able to manage 5 miles of puddle + mega boats. Saint George station would have to have a lower level added for Manhattan-bound service. I dislike the SI to Bay Ridge tunnel since it’d be slower and circuitous, it’d almost defeat the purpose of linking the two at all. I also don’t like the idea of splitting the current SIR into two lines. A straight shot to Manhattan (or Red Hook) from Saint George is more expensive but worth it in my opinion. But if it absolutely had to go through Bay Ridge I wouldn’t hesitate to dedicate part of the Verrazano lower level to it, even as a one track segment if the weight is too much of a concern. It’s a 13 lane span serving 8 lanes of traffic on either side, doing away with 1 or 2 lanes won’t hurt.

I don’t really support the physical integration of any LIRR branch into the subway system, at least not before the SIR, which has been waiting to be linked for nearly 100 years now, followed by the abandoned RBB. Imo it’d be better and cheaper to just make better use of the LIRR/MNRR. Increase service on the PW branch after ESA and integrate fares/transfers with the subway/buses via OMNY, the MTA needs to start acting like one agency and not several. Give some M7’s a rapid transit refurbishment (Crossrail-like or Subway-like) and run those exclusively on the Port Washington and Atlantic/Far Rockaway branches, adding infill stations where necessary. More ridership = more $$$ and less pressure on the subways and buses. If/when the (dumb) LGA AirTrain gets built that packed and the pricy + largely absent PW trains aren’t gonna cut it. For the life of me I hope this pandemic + OMNY forces the railroads to reevaluate and make alterations to their operations. Circling back to the SIR, I’d tie that into a fully completed SAS, Harlem to Tottenville. It’s 2020 and a Manhattan to Red Hook to Staten Island tunnel in the fairly shallow NY Harbor is neither impossible nor impractical, nor should it cost 10 billion and take 20 years. If possible I wouldn’t even TBM most of it, only where necessary, for the main stretch I’d sink pre-casted tunnel sections into a trench and cover them over and call it a day, the underwater version of a cut and cover operation.

I greatly prefer the new scheme over the bland blue stripe. I don’t feel any sense of nostalgia towards the old scheme, it’s so boring.

Is there some sort of maintenance facility near MacArthur Airport? I always see a variety of MTA/NICE buses around there, the other day I even saw a new-ish looking WMATA New Flyer, I had to do a double-take, wish I could’ve got a pic.

That’s interesting. So it doesn’t seem worth it at all, barring some sort of emergency that required some sections of these lines to be almost wholly rebuilt/repaired. Yeah I was thinking in terms of capacity improvements way into the future, but it seems like it’d be more trouble than it’s worth.

Would there be any material benefit to bringing the IRT to BMT/IND specs? This would obviously rank very low on the long list of expansions/improvements that need to happen first, it could be something that’s completed over time rather than all at once. Any necessary modifications for the slightly larger and potentially heavier future BMT/IND trains would be factored into any major work undertaken along these lines in the future, alterations to the station platforms would come last and should be a relatively easy. I imagine this would all be easiest to do on the since it’s all by itself, the others might be more difficult.

I get the feeling that this person was mental, I seriously doubt a terrorist would have stood around laughing.

2010’s HS graduate here, I had to look up the definition of “civics” and I’m still somewhat lost as to what it means in this context. But it’s too bad the government (at all levels) treats these transit agencies like garbage. MTA carries more passengers daily than all US air travel combined, several times over, yet these airlines are deemed “too big to fail” and receive bail-outs while transit agencies are left to dig in the couch. This entire debacle is a mess.

So basically nothing’s gonna change lol.

With the bus lanes making their way to Merrick Blvd + a potential Archer Ave busway I’d like to see the MTA revisit the Merrick Blvd SBS, it’s the only corridor out of the original five that never came to fruition. South Queens (along w/SE Brooklyn) has the longest commute times in the city, SBS along one street won’t really change that, but it’s something. Tbh this corridor really deserves an extension, either under Merrick or along the LIRR, but that’s another topic.

I wonder if those tail tracks south of Whitehall St could possibly be extended. They’re pointed directly at Governors Island, so I’d have the stop there, then head into Red Hook under either Van Brunt St or Richards St with 1 or 2 stops before shooting straight to Saint George taking over the SIR. Red Hook to Saint George would be about the same length as Howard Beach to Broad Channel (roughly 3.7 miles), so not a big deal if MTA construction costs could be reeled in (a huge if), it’d be a huge undertaking but it seems very doable, and this route would avoid any interaction with the in Brooklyn, easing reliability/capacity concerns. As far as Manhattan and Queens go, since the already exists I don’t see this being a huge problem. I mean, service might have to be increased somewhat (CBTC should help), but it’s not like the SIR is busting at the seams, the current headways are horrible. Also, this is probably an even bigger pipe dream, finish the SAS and create a connection to Atlantic Terminal, have the takeover the LIRR to Rosedale, add a few nicely spaced infill stations along the way. Faster commute times for almost everyone along the route, tons of pressure taken off the QBL, allowing enough room for the Rockaway Beach Branch connection. These are the infill stops I’d add: Utica Ave Rockaway Blvd Woodhaven (LIRR Woodhaven) Lefferts Blvd Linden/Guy R Brewer Blvd Baisley Blvd Anyone at Locust Manor or Laurelton trying to go to Far Rockaway or Long Beach can still do so, just transfer to those lines at Rosedale. Anyone trying to go to Penn Station can easily transfer to the LIRR at Jamaica Station, free transfers with OMNY on the new $2.75 LIRR Penn-Jamaica “shuttle” that makes local stops, trains are revamped M7’s with 6 doors per car and subway-style seating. I could see such a line really cannibalizing the .

extension to Co-Op City, running directly adjacent to I-95 along a concrete viaduct to Co-Op City Blvd. • Hutchinson River Pkwy (entrances on both sides of the highway) • Bartow Ave • Co-Op City Blvd (last stop) New (purple) running the length of I-495/LIE to Springfield Blvd, joins the at/near Hunterspoint Ave. Majority of the line would run along the median of I-495 along a concrete viaduct. • Van Dam St / Greenpoint Ave • Maurice Ave* (idk, looks a bit industrial) • Grand Ave • “Tri-Boro RX” • Queens Blvd / Woodhaven Blvd • 108th St • Flushing Meadows • Main St • Kissena Blvd • 164th St • Utopia Pkwy • 188th St • Francis Lewis Blvd • Oceania St • Springfield Blvd (last stop) Unlike the , the would only have two tracks due to space/weight constraints, however, the stops being placed a bit further apart should negate the need for an express track anyway. Tunneling is very expensive, I’d have it come above ground as soon as possible (don’t know where exactly), plus you’d get some nice views that way. All elevated stations would be completely enclosed with heating/cooling, arriving trains would line up with glass doors.

Why wouldn’t expanded subway service in Queens be useful? I think Northern Blvd would make a good east-west corridor, even if it isn’t served by the , but my reasoning was that the ends at Court Square, it can stand to go a bit further. But you’re right, more people will be traveling to Manhattan than Brooklyn. It’d connect LaGuardia with Manhattan and the subway system, wouldn’t that be a good thing? I mean you could extend the loud outdoor to LaGuardia, I was trying to avoid that. And as far as space, make more space. CBTC, deinterlining, or shift something around some other way. Or send the (or the ) to LaGuardia instead of down Queens Boulevard. We need expansion to help reduce the reliance on cars. Once upon a time we had lines running out over farmland, it helped induce demand, Queens by itself is the 4th most populated city in the U.S., Brooklyn is the 3rd, the demand for expansion into subway deserts (most of Queens) is there. I mean, financially, Springfield Blvd would obviously make more sense, but I don’t see a Little Neck Pkwy extension being entirely useless. Quite a few lines also approach city limits. In a perfect world we could have both, I think AirTrain LGA to Willets Point is quite dumb and little more than a pet project for Cuomo, however a connection to Jamaica would open it up to a much much larger passenger base, making the project (which is being built) more worthwhile. People traveling to LGA via the AirTrain from Jamaica and people traveling to LGA via the NorthernBlvd/LGA subway would mainly be coming from different directions. LGA is just too centrally located within NYC to not have a subway connection, it’s just asinine that this isn’t a thing already in existence.