R10 2952

I take it you've never been to the Melrose station then...

To be honest, the Enhanced Station Initiative was way overhyped; the renovations the MTA did on the Fourth Ave Line were something of a disappointment- the stations retained the hideous '60s refrigerator tiles and the original BMT platforms mosaics were never restored. Huge letdown for those of us who spent years anticipating the restorations. And Culver was a complete joke- at many stations they only did a partial replacement of the concrete platform slabs, and some of the mezzanines were real half-assed..

What does it matter anymore? P.T. Barnum and his circus are on their way out- hopefully, they won't be back anytime soon.

Of all the Queens Boulevard lines, I'd say it was hardest to catch the R32s on the LOL. After 2000, I only saw them show up on the G twice.

The 6-car R46s and 8-car R32s that ran on the back in the '90s mostly carried air, but of course things were very different back then with those neighborhoods and the ridership. Probably would make sense this time around to have the longer trains, though; the 300-foot trains have become a lot more crowded in the last few years.

I stopped having sympathy for them many years ago. When I was 12, some punk stole my bike from in front of a supermarket in Queens; store had camera footage of the act, but NYPD never even bothered- they closed the case after 3 days. And then of course you hear these stories break about the ticket-fixing scandals, bribery, the above-the-law mentality, other BS and so on. Maybe there are a few good cops (who knows), but too many of them act like just another street gang when it comes to who they choose to help. If I had been somebody's cousin, the bike would've turned up instantly probably....

Eh you'd be surprised; I've seen some serious shit go down on several different occasions in that triangle of blocks between Broadway and Park. Penn may be the gold-medalist in the cringe category, but that doesn't mean it's the only participant on the podium that is Midtown South.

People talking a page before about how bad parts of Midtown have gotten in the last year or two, but honestly: the whole area bordered by 23rd and 42nd, Park Ave S and 8th-9th Aves has been like that since the mid '70s. It's one of those more overlooked parts of Manhattan below 59th that never got cleaned up. Nobody with any common sense hangs around there longer than they have to, especially after 8 PM on weekdays- it becomes like Escape From New York. The whole situation that's been going on there for decades now definitely sucks, but until something gets done, it is what it is.

Wow, so the service had been hanging by a thread already since the PRR era. Whatever folks did ride that once-daily round trip must've either been real dedicated or real close to the stations.

The Gun Hill express-detour used to happen to every I took; going back at least 10 years. The miracle was when any of these PM trips actually made it to 238th.... Fun express run, though- much faster than the or , actually.

Actually, in the context of a transit agency, the user-friendly option would be to acknowledge the riding public as such; "passengers" on a railroad or a bus, or in the case of motorists on the river crossings- "drivers". Making it more removed from the context by referring to them as "customer" just conveys the message that they are treating people like little more than dollar signs. For comparison- hospitals have patients, libraries have patrons, elected officials have constituents, and so on.

Maybe because it's an insincere, phony and topical attempt of them pretending to solve a much deeper institutional-wide problem they have when it comes to not giving a shit about the riding public? Much like when big retail corporate chains come out with an ad campaign saying "we care about [insert social issue here]", I'm not convinced.

Easiest solution would be to use "Attention passengers", but MTA seems to have this private sector-style fixation on referring to them as "customers", so I doubt things will change.

Someone in another thread brought something up about service on Lower Montauk between Jamaica and Long Island City; I do vaguely remember LIRR stops at Fresh Pond and Glendale, but this was the tail end of service in the late '90s when it was down to 2 peak-direction runs a day. Does anyone remember when exactly they cut it down to 2 trips? I assume it must've happened before 1990-91. @Trainmaster5 any recollection of the Lower Montauk local trains?

I would go even further and say the MTA robbed both Peter and Paul, while telling Mary 'the check is in the mail' when it clearly isn't. Looking at their blatant mismanagement of the ticking time-bomb that is the R46 MDBF, I can't help but wonder why they simply didn't send the R32s to ENY and then send the R42s to the as the rush hour put-in fleet. Would've given the agency some breathing room- couldn't possibly be worse than what they're doing currently with the R46s.

It absolutely did. Bowery was a non-entity back then, and also outside of rush-hour trains often terminated at Canal Street on the center stub-end tracks. Not to mention the eastern half of the station still had its own exits on the other side of the street. Different world entirely..

Understatement of the year.

3rd oldest, theoretically there's still R42s on-property they could use if need be, but I get your point all the same.

Not counting this year, I would say ridership to/from Hunterspoint and LIC on the railroad has dropped about 30% over the last 10 years, which roughly coincides with when they discontinued the peak-direction expresses that went nonstop between Jamaica and LIC on Lower Montauk. If we're talking the last 30 years, I'd say the decline has been about 45%, but that can be chalked up to the obvious changes in the neighborhood. There was a sizeable demographic of blue-collar folks back in the day who would ride in from Nassau County to western Queens to get to the manufacturing jobs; came across some old video on Youtube of the area, taken in '88-'89, and to my surprise, LIC terminal was actually somewhat busy, at least in rush hour anyway.

Always wondered that myself; I get the impression it was something they planned but gave up on halfway through (probably when the shells were already constructed). Because of how they ultimately changed it, the half-width cabs never made sense to me. In fact, I've never even seen photos or footage of R68/As operated from the half-width cab.

What's the deal with these guys who modify their car stereo to the point the whole car vibrates? Do they really think blasting shitty music at 150 decibels while riding around in a 2000 Toyota Camry makes them badass? Cause that shit ain't dope- it's wack.

Go ahead, blame the progressives for all the bad things that have happened. I'm curious when corporate shills like Biden, Schumer and Pelosi will deliver much-needed solutions for ordinary working people in this country, things we needed 1, 2, 5, 10 years ago: where's single-payer healthcare, $15 federal minimum wage, affordable housing that goes beyond mere topical solutions, rewriting labor laws to strengthen the rights of employees? How long do we have to wait? 2050? 2100? The year 3000? At that point we'll all probably be living in shacks in the Rockies because global warming will flood everything else. Look, we could argue back and forth about this for days, but instead here's some food for thought: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/democratic-party-blame-the-left-lackluster-election-results-down-ballot So you know where I stand on the issues.

I've been saying for years now that the MTA has had a misplaced priority hard-on when it comes to directing the bulk of LIRR service along the Main Line and on to Penn Station. It's a contributing factor to why Penn can be such a nightmare, and delays just ripple when something goes wrong between Sunnyside-Woodside-Jamaica. Can't force Niagara Falls through a kitchen faucet; every time they've tried to narrow the other options (Rockaway, Lower Montauk, Atlantic) they just bring the faucet one step closer to bursting.

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The Democrats failed to flip the Senate, I'm not optimistic about Georgia, and November 2022 is a while away so there's basically jack shit the MTA can do at this point.