R10 2952

As far as mayors go, DeBlasio, Bloomberg, and Giuliani were/are arrogant pricks who have done more harm than good. Dinkins, Koch and Beame were a buch of sleazy schmucks who spent more time dishing out patronage perks to cronies than actually trying to competently manage the City administration. Lindsay was a bumbling bleeding-heart who was in way over his head as the person who's supposed to be in charge. This city has not had a decent mayor since Robert Wagner; everyone who's occupied Gracie Mansion since then has been garbage.

Marcus, Barney's, Saks, Brooks Bros., all ridiculous prices. Only time I ever saw a reasonable price tag on that high-end stuff was shopping at the local Goodwill. Edit: Just saw your new signature. 'Toxic guy from the forums' LMFAO...

Well it's a public sector outfit, so you're probably on the right track in terms of the reasoning. That said, it just goes to show how byzantine and counterproductive most of the agency's on-the-job policies are; no amount of benefits or pension payouts would be enough to convince me trade my current choices for dealing with the pricks in MTA's HR, the RCC, or 97% of the TSSes.

Probably the right move, to be honest. NYCT never really did much in the way of maintenance of the R33WF after they were relegated to work service. Some of those cars, it's a miracle they didn't disintegrate into a cloud of rust on their own accord.

For me personally, it's exposed what a joke the whole dual federal-state system is, a medieval patchwork of different local governments all doing their own thing. Federalism has long outlived it's usefulness. Modern-day France, Spain, Austria, England all have unitary (centralized) governments, and none of those places are dictatorships. All healthy democracies, with better standards of living than us to boot. They get shit done.

An elevated route would be quicker and cheaper, but it is not politically feasible in this day and age. Study local history and you'll see that wholesale opposition to els has existed since the 1920s. Much as I think it would be easier, there's a reason no new elevated line has gone up since the IND viaduct across Newtown Creek 85+ years ago.

I wonder how many of these people complaining had the resolve to vote for Zephyr Teachout or Cynthia Nixon in the primaries; if they decided that Andy Boy was the best we can do for governor, then they have no right to complain IMHO. Vote for a jerk, reap the rewards.

Exactly. @Lawrence St you don't know if the inspectors were being pressured to falsify documentation or cut corners by management; my experience in the public sector, you follow the paper trail to supervision, because 90% of the time that's where the problem starts.

The general mentality at 2 Broadway makes me think that given the choice, they would much rather be some property-leasing conglomerate that doesn't even do public transit, much like what Penn Central became after they quit the railroad business (a holding company with controlling stakes in Madison Square Garden and Grand Central Terminal). Because when faced with their main task, getting people from Point A to Point B, they only seem to do it with the utmost reluctance.

@RR503 The key words being well-operated and catastrophic-but-rare. Most North American systems I've ridden on are not the former, and the latter, by definition, wreaks havoc anytime it does happen. Having been caught in that ATS failure on the A division as well as two separate system failures on the , as a passenger I'm not enthusiastic about a future prospect of trading a twice-monthly, short-circuited signal in one fixed block for a twice-yearly software glitch or malware attack that brings down an entire line or even the system. That day when the IRT crapped out, Atlantic Avenue was chaos and much of nobody was able to board a BMT train on the first attempt. As to Canarsie, that was no picnic either.

Off the top of my head, it was around 2011, and I think it was TwoTimer who went into details explaining what happened exactly, but he doesn't post here anymore.

The post office is really screwing crap up lately; since Biden got elected, aside from the nominations to the board, I really haven't heard him directly address the problem head-on. Even worse, some Democrats are beginning to embrace that prick DeJoy as part of a strategy to try and get Republican support for stimulus legislation in the Senate. So sick and tired of this bullshit; if the Democrats drag their feet now, they stand to lose Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024. Obama learned the hard way that trying to reason with the GOP gets you nowhere. When dealing with jerkoffs, you got to play hardball.

No, it was bus stops on the weekday Bx1 Limited; I even had a printed schedule lying around the house several years ago that showed the Limited made nearly all the designated stops of the local, which goes back to my original point: what's the point of them promoting limited-stop service if it really isn't?

Several years ago there was an incident where ATS went down on the IRT, caused the entire A Division to be f**ked for all of afternoon rush hour. It's got me thinking, do the current CBTC systems being brought online across NYCT have any fail-safes to prevent that type of shit from happening again down the road? I mean, suppose the system crashes or even gets hacked- then what? Seems like that would be a much bigger operational disruption than a single fixed-block signal going dark, if you ask me.

Another random thought; the pre-SBS designation of bus routes as Limited vs. regular. On paper it sure sounded like a good idea, but when I used to ride the Bx1 from time to time back in the 2000s, there was little to no difference in taking the Limited- literally the bus made almost all the stops the regular did. If they're going to designate a service as Limited, it only makes sense in my opinion if the bus is making, in the case of longer routes like the Bx1 or Bx2, at least 10 less stops than the regular local.

Something random I've been thinking about; the designation of express/skip-stop variants of routes as diamonds versus letters. Unless the variant is significantly different from the original route, is there really any point in it being a separate letter? Why when it could've just been <1>? Why when it could just be <J>? Personally, i think they made the right call in designating the Culver express as instead of some new letter. Keeps things neat and simple.

Well if it has closed partitions, it's not really an "open gangway", is it? Anyway, aside from what could happen in a fire, the other issues I've always had with the open-gangway design are: the lack of operational flexibility (same as with the current 4 and 5-car sets); the apparent lack of anticlimbers (cars could telescope into one another in an accident); the homeless not only running up and down more, but also spreading their body odor through 4 or 5 cars now instead of 1; and the precipitous decline in ridership levels that no longer warrants such a design in the first place (work-from-home will stick around, it'll be years before crowding comes back, if at all). You also have to ask yourself at one point do these designs begin to outweigh the cost. Just look at where the mentality regarding wider doors has got us- the side windows on the R211 are tiny. What's next, no windows at all? The real solution to overcrowding is to build new subway lines, not some band-aid half-measures. I also don't know where some of you get this hivemind tendency that if other places in the world do X with their transit, then we must do the exact same thing also. I am tired of people endlessly preaching the gospel of innovation without taking into account any independent thought around here; I'm beginning to see why folks like Joe, Snowblock and Julio all left.

1. Actually it was quite common back in the day; in the '80s on the Bronx IRT, it was practically endemic. Why else do you think they replaced the rubber window gaskets with steel ones? 2. Married pairs are still the norm for many North American agencies, though- just look at MBTA, SEPTA, CTA, TTC, RTA Cleveland, Baltimore, Miami, LA.

THIS, this right here. Appreciate you bringing it up; the various issues with the R44s alone were case in point.

Yes, I never liked the Rockets myself; the T1 series is a lot more practical in that regard.

Always liked the R42s, but the writing's been on the wall for 10-15 years at this point. Is what it is I guess. At least some are still being kept for work service, so there's that.

The whole concept of rezoning/redevelopment that has been going on in the city since at least the Battery Park City era is inherently flawed; it's a series of policies dictated by wealthy real estate interests and predicated on the concept that any area in NYC that still has or had manufacturing/commercial/warehouse activity is by definition, blighted or bad. They think they can replace every LIC, Far West Side, or Bushwick with overpriced office space for tech-industry yuppies sipping pretentious lattes, but my counterpoint has always been that you can't have flowers without some dirt. What I mean by that is akin to the bumper stickers I see upstate- 'no farms? no food.' Hell, the fact that freight used to roll into this city by rail decades ago, but now sits in traffic on the Major Deegan only for retailers to then pass the fuel and labor costs on to consumers, says everything.

Yes, that's exactly it- now I remember everything. It was one of a series of PBL lines that either got heavily revamped or basically vanished into thin air after takeover. Didn't ride express buses back then, but it definitely was only 1 or 2 peak direction trips daily. Rare enough that seeing one of those Green Line buses along 63rd Drive in between Triboro Q38s was a real head-turner. They ran single-door Orion 5s on that route: https://gallery.bustalk.info/albums/userpics/10001/5894_Orion_V_CIMG2094_040106.jpg Hard to believe it was 15-20 years ago at this point. Different world entirely.

Does anyone remember which QM express route used to run down 63rd Drive in Rego Park? I recall it was either a Green Lines or Triboro route, but I don't have the old map on me. Was either rerouted, renumbered, or flat-out discontinued by June 2010 IIRC.