R10 2952

Why vote for a Democrat or a Republican when you can just vote third-party? The Republicans are anti-transit, the Democrats are anti-car. What we really need is another option, a reasonable middle ground. As an everyday citizen, I don't support building more highways, I think we have enough (and in some case we have ones that are outright unnecessary- Sheridan Expressway and Cross Island Parkway come to mind). At the same time, I think proposals for closing down major arteries like the BQE or adding that poorly-planned bike lane to the Brooklyn Bridge are non-starters and simply out of touch with reality. Now I'm not saying we should give a free pass to drivers, some of whom really do act like a bunch of privileged a**holes and disregard everyone else like it's GTA IV or something. I also have nothing but utter contempt for the street-clogging vultures that are Uber, Lyft, limo, green, yellow cab, and bike rickshaw drivers. Something really needs to be done to rein them all in, and on a serious scale. But that doesn't automatically vindicate the agenda of the Transportation Alternatives lobby, either. Two wrongs do not make one right, and until new subway lines actually materialize a decade or two (or more) from now, a balanced, reasonably-regulated policy will be needed that takes into account all modes of transportation. I don't see the TransAlt crowd proposing productive ideas like sending the BxM1/2/18 down the West Side Highway, or de-congesting Fifth Avenue by rerouting some of the other BxM lines through the Central Park north-south drives. I don't see them putting pressure on the LIRR to maintain Atlantic Branch through-service or get the Elmhurst stop restored. I don't see them fighting to get Cuomo primaried so we can have a governor who actually gives a shit about improving public transit. All I see them doing is shouting about more bike lanes while turning a blind eye to cyclists who run red lights and hit pedestrians. The mentality of several of these mayoral candidates is almost the same as when the politicians pushed for el closures after 1940- 'do it my way now, and we'll worry about the long-term solution later'. Where's SAS Phase 2-4? Where's the extension to the Bronx? The replacement for the lower Myrtle El in Brooklyn? The Archer Line beyond Parsons Boulevard? I bet none of the November candidates would even get those references if asked about them.

I didn't mean the model itself (Caprice), I meant the body style; station wagon as opposed to sedan seems rather unusual for a cop car. In the context of those times, this was back when anything like an SUV as a city police vehicle was almost unheard of.

Here's a very off-topic, very random thought. What was the deal with the NYPD using station wagons back in the day? Growing up, I remember seeing Chevrolet Caprice station wagons (not just the sedan) being used as cop cars- the '90s Caprice and a few '80s ones that were still on the road. Never made sense to me; the vans I could understand, those were for transporting larger amounts of equipment or personnel, but the station wagons? That was just an odd choice.

Yeah, I grew up in that area (some years ago). People tended to be insular and lean Republican; the mentality was basically- Not everything about Middle Village was bad, but there are definitely some things I don't miss.

I agree with the first part of what you said, but as far as Republicans are concerned, they have the opposite problem. If they had a free hand, they'd go full-speed Robert Moses, ramming highways through any neighborhood they don't like and dismantling mass transit. I honestly believe it will take an independent or third-party candidate to end the circus. Or at the very least, voters need to be less passive and actually scrutinize the folks jockeying for Gracie Mansion.

It's getting newsworthy at this point, honestly.

The MTA has had a shitty approach to signal equipment maintenance for years, just look at their repair backlog. Would not be surprised if their myopic attitude has carried over to the new system as well.

I can say from personal experience that this has been happening with a lot of public-sector offices in the last few months. Call, e-mail, send a letter... nobody responds. I would chalk it up to a lot of the office workers still working remotely due to coronavirus, and the agency probably doesn't have a competent strategy in place for fielding those inquires remotely (IT, HR, so on). If that's the case, not much you can do about it until COVID-19 ends at some point. It is what it is.

For what it's worth, there was a plan in the late '70s or early '80s to tie the 63rd Street Tunnel into a repurposed Lower Montauk Branch, but the Archie Bunkers in that part of Queens killed it.

Exactly. When we have a bunch of fundamentalists calling for further parking elimination, closing or restricting more streets to cars, and lowering the already-overzealous speed limit even more, it's difficult not to reach the conclusion that their ultimate agenda is to ban personal automobiles from the city entirely. Meanwhile, as you accurately observed, when pressed for details on how to make public transit a viable enough incentive to get people out of their cars voluntarily, they're all opaque on the details. In the case of Andrew Yang, not only does he not come out and acknowledge the hard truth- that we need to pick up the pace from the IND days and build more subways- he flat out has thrown his support behind the Queensway proposal, instead of supporting rail reactivation on the Rockaway Beach Branch. 'Do as I say, not as I do' seems to be the name of the game with some of these candidates. Meanwhile, the end result will be an escalation of what we've seen since 2014; people will be forced out of their cars, will try the subway and bus but become disillusioned by the lack of capacity to absorb new ridership and the inadequate quality of service, and turn to Uber/Lyft or biking instead (or leave the city altogether). Meanwhile the City will milk the cash-cow that is the traffic camera for all its worth. A vicious cycle perpetuated by nonsense, overblown rhetoric, a lack of real solutions, and overall dishonesty. Personally, I think the disappointing results we're seeing in the runup to November are a side-effect of a larger problem; there's no third or fourth party in New York City strong enough to challenge the status quo and offer better alternatives. It's not much of a choice when people have to decide between elitist limousine liberals, or a bunch of right-wing nutjobs.

Jesus, what an absolute mess.

So many people on here were preaching over the years about how great CBTC on Queens Boulevard would be, but now that it's here, it runs like total shit. Why am I not surprised? I wonder if it's going to take as many years to iron out as the issues on the .

Some people are definitely living in fantasyland if they expect ridership to bounce back to what it was anytime soon, but I think there are many others who have recognized that ridership will remain depressed for quite some time, as you have. I've seen the writing on the wall for over a year now- the coronavirus situation erased all rebounds made since the '90s virtually overnight, and people are once again looking down on public transit as unclean and unsafe, even if some (but not all) of those claims are overblown. Me personally, I think we'll be back to mid-to-late '80s levels of service frequency when the dust settles, or possibly worse.

That sounds about right, the and the were known to swap equipment for weekend work back then, as did the and the . Either emotions, or they simply didn't have the courage to vote against him in the primaries.

Her leadership does not inspire confidence; she's a complete puppet, without any independent thought of her own. Cuomo's father also had ego issues as governor, but at least Ravitch and Kiley were competent appointees, not hapless cronies.

Yeah, what I had in mind was Redbirds in revenue service on the post-GOH; they never appeared there once, not even for service changes, but there were folks years ago on SubChat who kept insisting that it happened sometime in the '90s. As I said, there don't seem to be any photos of it having ever happened, so I'm convinced it was just a rumor.

He needs Frank Costanza's relaxation tape:

@MHV9218@paulrivera Their whole layer of middle management is rotten to the core; even if Cuomo, Feinberg and all the empty suits from 2 Broadway disappeared tomorrow, you'd still have hundreds of managers like that Dyatlov guy from the HBO Chernobyl mini-series, lower down on the ladder and shitting on front-line employees while telling the top-level executives 'everything is fine'. Prendergast and Irick were perfect examples of this; on paper they looked good because they had risen through the ranks, been with the agency for a number of years in managerial capacities, but in reality they were mindless bean-counters who failed to see passengers as anything more than a statistic. With such a disinterest in the riding public (and their front-line employees, to be quite honest), they may as well have been faceless executives in some generic corporate conglomerate, as opposed to public-sector mass transit.

LMAO in my day possible Redbird sightings on the is what folks were obsessed with. Either way, some people take this stuff way too seriously for their own (or anyone else's) good. On a side note, at least R142s have actually been documented as showing up in service on the periodically over the years. The Redbirds? Never seen any photos of them in regular service on the (1), so I'm almost positive it's a myth.

Cuomo is definitely living in his own head if he expects to be remembered fondly. The public are tired of him, people in the state-level party have had enough of him, and apparently the Biden administration is turning their back to him as well.

Yeah, it always made more sense to me seeing them on Queens Boulevard as opposed to the Eastern Division, on account of the whole issue with door controls and the operating position in the 8-car trains. Never understood they just didn't use the R32/38s for the instead after GOH, for that reason alone.

It's definitely a problem, and if hackers ultimately figure out how to get into the CBTC systems then the subway will be completely f**ked. Guess we can add cyberattacks to the list of delay causes in the near future. Not looking forward to it.

Gotta love how her first instinct is to protect Cuomo; what a f**king tool...

There was the rail bridge in Poughkeepsie that got damaged by fire in the '70s; the state and federal government were prepared to provide some funding for the repairs, but Conrail deliberately dragged their feet because they wanted to get rid of the Maybrook Line. Now that its all been converted into a walking trail and tourist attraction, the window of opportunity has closed entirely.

Jamaica Yard loved to play musical chairs with the car assignments; for most of the '90s and 2000s they had this habit of randomly bouncing sets of R32s from the ; often to the , sometimes to the , rarely to the . Interestingly, they never assigned any R32s to the until 2009, for whatever reason.