N6 Limited

On 2/16/2023 at 11:00 PM, ABCDEFGJLMNQRSSSWZ said:

As for the , I can see grates on 158th Street in Queens (where we know the tunnel exists with tracks), but don't see anything past that. Is there something I'm missing?

On 168th Street near Liberty Ave, there appears to be subway grates.

18 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Poor/lack of dispatching. They only seem to actively dispatch on SBS lines and the other local lines, forget it. I noticed this when I would use the M79 and M86. If the M86 had bunching, they would work aggressively to fix the gaps in service. Not so with the regular local lines.

This really shouldn’t be an issue where they have a bus command center and GPS tracking of all buses.

18 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

-The product/quality of service has deteriorated so much that they've pushed people out of the system and they will have a hard time getting them back.

Pretty much, and when they were actually starting to have tangible service improvements, Cuomo runs Byford away...

The MTA has to not only provide service, but improve intermodal transfers via timing and consideration. Especially, later in the evenings when the buses and trains run less frequently. They know where all the trains and buses are, they can’t hold for connections during certain times? (Especially terminal stations). Some buses have even longer than 20 min headway at times. I’ve also seen conductors quick to close the doors in the station when someone is running to the train when theres a gap in service for the next train.

The conductor/T.O. should be aware of the train ahead and behind them to make supporting customer service decisions. If the doors are open and a train is coming in across the platform, and the next train behind you is in 15 mins, you may want to hold the doors to allow transfers.

If you had heavy QBL trackwork delays and you have bunched  or  trains arriving at Jamaica Center/179th st, could they hold the buses for a few mins?

What kind of demand would this place on routes like the B25, Q60, Q66, etc as people avoid paying for the subway?

I thought about this while using metrocard, how will riders know immediately if they got a free transfer, if the screen just says “GO”?

Is NICE planning to get more articulated buses?

16 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I don’t find that it magically clears up at the Queens border. It usually clears up at Cross Bay

You can monitor google maps and observe the chokepoint as well.

2 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

The Belt Parkway was built in 1940 with four lanes with plans to add two more around 1960. But it proved so popular that the extra two lanes were added just ten years later in 1950. It already needed another two lanes by 1960 barring the addition of mass transit. However, it never received any additional lanes but carries like six times the traffic it did in 1950, hence all. The congestion. The morning rush is like 6AM to 10 AM and the evening rush begins at 2 PM and ends around 7 PM. During those hours in the peak direction traffic barely moves at all.

Since the lanes were widened and shoulders added with improved entrances and exits, traffic does flow better. It clears up eastbound at the Queens border because it goes from three lanes to six lanes in each direction if you include Conduit. 
 

Does the Belt Parkway have a peak direction? It’s traffic patterns are seemingly random. 

The conduit does not flank the Belt Parkway until Cross Bay Blvd, if that was the determining factor then congestion would not clear up magically at the Queens Border, but at exit 17/ Nassau Expressway exit. 

15 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

It’s just got too many cars. They should have widened it when it was reconstructed. Anyway they did add a shoulder which can be used as a bus lane for mist of the way. A small portion needs a minor upgrade to make it usable. The only place where the bus would have to use the regular lanes is over Hendrix Creek near the Brooklyn Queens border, unless they rebuild the bridge to make it wider. 

 

4 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I grew up not too far from the Belt Parkway.  Always been a mess. Like @BrooklynBus said it's just an issue of volume.  The times I've used it, I've been shocked when it wasn't backed up.

 

While I understand that the Belt Parkway has always had congestion problems, since they’ve rebuilt many of the bridges it has been mostly flowing in that section. Except  that, when eastbound traffic is congested in Brooklyn, it’s usually up to the “Betts Creek” bridge (Brooklyn/Queens Border), and then fine after that, until the usual delays around Guy R Brewer Blvd. So, it appears to be some sort of bottleneck. 

Under “perfect” overrun conditions, should the bumper block stay stationary and simply compress?

10 hours ago, TDL said:

QB-1-via Belt Parkway stopping at Riding Academy (eastbound only), Rockaway Parkway, Pennsylvania Ave, Gateway Center, Cross Bay Blvd, Aqueduct-N Conduit , JFK Airport.

While this route would likely be faster than taking local streets, they have to address why the Belt Parkway is chronically congested eastbound, up to the bridge over the Brooklyn/Queens border. I’m not sure if it’s the grade change or sight distance and/or the cars entering from Gateway, but it’s annoying.

Are any of the zoom meetings recorded?  I’m  curious as to the feedback of the redesign.

On 2/10/2023 at 8:21 AM, 7-express said:

It may even get worse due to a new proposal this year that could give the city the ability to change speed limits to 20 MPH or less in certain areas.  https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-could-drop-speed-limits-below-25-mph-under-hochul-proposal

Those comments are... 

On 2/9/2023 at 9:53 PM, checkmatechamp13 said:

That's only some Main Line trains stopping at those stations. They aren't adding extra physical trains to stop there.

Yes, but it’s the stations I use, so it’s  much better 😁. Also, the Huntington Trains are all local From Jamaica, making intermediate trips feasible.

I see that the western end of the Hempstead Branch is getting a nice increase in service, especially UBS arena.

Does anyone know what the train fare structure was like when they had peak and off-peak fares?

3 hours ago, CyclonicTrainLookout said:

Unless I'm not seeing it on the site, there seem to be no mention of LIRR cross-honoring.

I don’t remember them ever cross honoring LIRR for QBL FasTrack.

3 hours ago, Vulturious said:

I would guess because it's at night? Only the issue is probably going to be overcrowding on the , then again it's late night so who knows.

I remember participating in a couple of QBL FasTracks. The  was SRO but not overcrowded since they increased frequency, quite a few spilled out at 74th- Broadway though. IIRC, they had ’s leaving from the Manhattan Bound Express track and  from the Queens bound Express Track.

On 2/8/2023 at 3:29 PM, NewFlyer 230 said:

Hahaha you were like nope we are not doing this today. I hear you on that. I’ve actually never thought about getting off and taking the train back to Penn for the LIRR. It might have saved me time and my sanity doing so. I usually would stick it out with the never ending hope that we get moving again lol. I sometimes do get off and take alternate routes when possible.

Yeah, I wanted to save my time and sanity, I started comparing the times, and I realized that sometimes I would have gotten home an hour earlier if I went straight to Penn instead of dealing with the delays and missing the bus. I’ve even bailed further down the line when I saw that the Q60 was approaching and I could make it if I got outside quick enough. (When the   would sit in the local stations with the doors open) .

On 2/8/2023 at 3:29 PM, NewFlyer 230 said:

The late night delays when they occur almost seem like never ending and there was one point back in 2021 when it was week after week for months and it got to the point that now I just make my way over to the  or LIRR and for the most part I don’t bother to check to see whats going on with the QBL at night. Honestly I'm convinced that the agency wants these late evening/night interruptions to cause some to get fed up with the subway and have them consider spending a few extra dollars for the LIRR.

I did try taking the  to Flushing and the Q27 one day, it wasn’t too bad, but the LIRR was much faster (to an extent, hourly headway off peak).

I didn’t even bother checking QB after a certain time, it was LIRR by default, on weekends as well. City Ticket became the default.

And yes, I’ve wondered about the MTA’s intentions as well, since it was actually the QBL delays that made me consider using the LIRR on weekdays.

1 hour ago, checkmatechamp13 said:

Oh I’m hardly on the turnpike north of exit 13.

3 hours ago, IAlam said:

I don't think upping the speed limit will really fix that either, there are very few major roads where you can go safely above 30 without some obstacle. But driving in a city isn't supposed to be fun, there's too many cars, even if we can magically speed everything up and restore every car it won't fix the congestion, the city was just as congested before.  

Depends, an obstacle usually requires a lane change which takes maybe 5 seconds to go around IF other motorist let you, when no one is next to you it’s quick and easy (in my opinion).  There are many roads where above 30 would be safe, especially in Queens , Staten Island, and South East Brooklyn. 
 

Driving doesn’t have to be “fun”, but let me get to my destination without constant Just-in-time red signals. 

3 hours ago, IAlam said:

Most of the reckless driving I see comes from out of state plates especially NJ. I saw lady from NJ drive the wrong way down a major road and nearly hit another car who had to swerve out of the way, just so she could get a parking spot. She then proceeded to block the entire road as she did a very poor U turn just to pull into the spot. It doesn't matter how hard it is to drive or find parking, anyone who drives like that should get their license suspended at the very least. Craziest part my cousin who was driving was able to just quickly take her spot by making a normal UTurn when the light turned red. Luckily there were 2 spots instead of 1 but it just shows you how crazy people are. People who can't keep their cool really shouldn't be behind the wheel. 

That’s a bit different. Because many times “reckless” ( and “speeding” ) is thrown around as mentioned.  

1 hour ago, MHV9218 said:

Let's take a pause here. DOT changing the speed limit from 30mph to 25mph (have you ever seen Midtown traffic moving at 30mph, or an NYC bus even hit 30mph in Manhattan?) and adding bus lanes and bike lanes is not what slowed down our streets.

What slowed down our streets is the massive, unchecked, and unprecedented explosion of for-hire vehicles (Uber, Lyft) that have been allowed to completely throttle all major thoroughfares with no serious curtailment in years. In 2011, there were 40,000 licensed FHVs. By 2018, there were 103,000. It's only gone up. Most estimates have roughly 1/3 of all Manhattan traffic as FHVs. This has been a complete failure of city and state government who rolled over completely when Uber came to town and we've all been paying the price since.

The slowdown is a result of the additional cars and congestion, not the programs to improve turning visibility, separate bus and bike lanes, etc. If anything, traffic signal priority and other DOT initiatives have helped buses, not hurt them. But these are small battles won in a losing war. Nothing will change until the FHVs are limited, and unfortunately, people have gotten used to the (incredibly irresponsible environmentally) idea of simply Ubering everywhere.

Also, one point that people never note is that Ubers and Lyfts show up outside a building and double park for however long it takes for a passenger to arrive. This is miles worse than what taxis would do, which was pull over usually near a street corner or break in parked cars, and quickly unload for 5-10 seconds. Now it's normal for an Uber to sit for 1-3 minutes blocking a full lane of traffic. Leaving aside the sheer quantity of cars, meaningful regulation of Ubers and Lyfts would start with that practice.

That’s part of the issue, you focused on Manhattan, understandably so, but NYCDOT is doing this city wide. 

Yes, I agree about the for-hire vehicles. The volume, blocking streets/lanes/bus stops, lethargic driving, etc, all add to congestion (on the highways as well, they’re always throttling the highways). However, the city doesn’t necessarily want to limit these vehicles, they’d prefer to milk them with congestion pricing. Get more money out of them first and foremost, and if that leads to a reduction in traffic then so-be-it, if not, then “apparently we didn’t implement a high enough congestion charge, we will have public meetings on the increase of the congestion charge, for um.. the environment?”.

12 hours ago, BrooklynBus said:

I didn’t say we should add lanes to the BQE, we just need to get back the lanes we lost so the congestion isn’t ridiculous. 

Perhaps they should add a lane near the promenade. For example, northbound, have 4 lanes,  two lanes of thru-traffic, which bypasses the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, and two lanes local traffic from Atlantic Ave to Tillary Street or the Manhattan Bridge Ramp.

Since they built the new Kosciuszko Bridge, traffic going to the LIE no longer backs up the highway.

12 hours ago, IAlam said:

Certain aspects of vision zero are working ie. barricade, bollards, islands are helping reduce the severity of accidents. A car that drives up a bollard or barrier is a car that didn't drive into a bike or a pedestrian. That being said going to what VG8 said the amount of cars that actually follow road rules is minimal at best, speeding, wreck less driving, distracted driving are all up. There's a lot more people not following the rules and paying attention now than ever before. If the NYPD actually enforced road rules instead of breaking it themselves then there could a big difference. 

For any experienced motorist, it’s not really a surprise. Artificially reducing the speed limit and other “traffic calming” measures make driving frustrating, perhaps boring at times. For those that don’t drive, it’s like being forced to walk slow because “Walking fast is dangerous, you may trip!”

People walk at their own pace, when there are slow/distracted people walking in front of you, you simply walk around them. With driving, it’s not so simple if you can get a speed camera ticket, the lanes are reduced, speed bumps, etc.  Driving in NYC completely sucks, but that’s what they’re aiming for, however it’s also adding to frustration and agressive driving, it’s really their(NYC DOT and whoever else’s) fault that this is happening. 

Most drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike go 70-75MPH, it keeps you engaged and alert, if they reduced the speed limit back down to 55, you will have motorists bored and texting all the way down to Delaware.

1 hour ago, NewFlyer 230 said:

Nowadays I’m barely on the subways as I work in Long Island, but it used to be so annoying man. I could get on the  at 42nd street at 10:30pm for example and because of the construction I would reach Forest Hills at 11:55pm two minutes after the Q64 would leave forcing me to wait all the way until 12:22am just to be on the bus for less than 10 minutes.

We would always get slowed down to a snails pace in the 53rd street tunnel and then constantly stop in between stations up until 63rd drive. At that point trains would travel as normal and by the time I got to Forest Hills no matter what time it was for some reason I’d always just miss the Q64 as if it were done on purpose. 

 

I feel your pain. One late evening it took me 2.5 hours to get home due to delays on the QBL and then missing my bus in Jamaica by a few mins. After that, I started taking the LIRR after 10PM. Tested it out a few times, then bought a 10 trip off-peak. The commute home definitely improved.

One day around 9:30PM the  started getting delayed in the 63rd street tunnel, I got off at Roosevelt Island (The point of no return), crossed to the other side, took the train back to 34th and walked to Penn. I did NOT want to deal with the BS.

1 hour ago, Cait Sith said:

Getting back on topic, I've been hearing that the MTA has largely scaled back on the ideas from the recent draft....another draft will be coming out with some routes being restored to what they currently are, with alterations to existing proposals.

And before anyone asks, there's currently no set date on when the next draft will come out. Changes are still ongoing.

I remember saying how there will be multiple drafts coming out for Queens in various places, and some people didn't believe me....lol.

Is it due to rider feedback, or the budget crisis?

27 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

The lights are not synched on purpose.  That's all part of the Vision Zero program, which deters speeding. You can't travel at high speeds if you have to stop every so many blocks.  Furthermore, to actually envision the plan that DOT wants would cost much much more, so they've taken a blanket approach Citywide in an attempt to keep costs down. You take one or two designs. You examine the costs for those two options and then you expand it.  That's pretty much what is happening, and the DOT has been very clear about this approach when re-designing streets. The goal is to deter speeding and decrease fatalities first and foremost.

P.S. NYC is now the most congested in the country.

What is the plan that DOT wants?

28 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Sorry, but registrations for cars here in NYC has definitely increased. That is a fact - a 40% increase back in 2021.

Maybe the increase in novice drivers is the cause?  I’ve observed road capacity reduced just by the actions(or lack thereof) of other drivers.

44 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

Lemme ask you guys this.

When has adding more lanes and highways incentivized people to take the subway or bus?......

Speaking of which, years after the JFK Airtrain has been in service, they’re adding HOV lanes to the Van Wyck Expressway.

If they want to incentivize people to take the subway or bus then they should try to improve regional service and fare options. Like they’ve started doing with City Ticket, Combo Tickets, Grand Central Madison, New bus routes in the redesigns, planning on Interborough Express, MNRR to Penn, but also thinking about options like Newark/Secaucus to Jamaica through service, etc. Make travel by public transportation cheap, easy and desirable.  I mean even with the exorbitant tolls, sometimes it’s cheaper to drive than to take the train/bus, especially with a group/family.

Remember, all highway traffic is not local nor can be easily or reasonably replicated by transit. When they close the VZB for the NYC Marathon, the Belt Parkway and BQE are bliss. Perhaps an Interborough Express westward extension to Staten Island North Shore line with a western terminus at Newark/Newark Airport/Jersey Gardens would help somewhat.

Reducing the city speed limit to 25mph and reducing lanes so that the 40mph (at best) subway is the faster option is not the way. They slowed down bus service with the 25MPH cap and are still surprised ridership is dropping? Should an electric bike be faster than the bus? Actually, now that they have the speed cameras, they can increase the thoroughfares (with buses/bus lanes at least) back to 30-35, that alone may increase bus ridership.

Our region is an archipelago containing disconnected transit systems with Manhattan right in the middle, maybe a circle line that went through the outer boroughs and NJ would help.

5 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

That's incorrect. Lights are out of sync all over the place, especially in places like Cross Bay Blvd because of the speed cameras and vision zero infrastructure. 

When speed cameras are installed, there is no longer a need for out of sync “traffic calming” measures,  they want the signals back in sync so traffic can flow but also so they can get violations. Out-of-sync signals, unless it encourages speeding up to catch a signal before it turns red, is not lucrative for them.

When it comes to corridors like Cross Bay Blvd, Atlantic Ave, etc, “in-sync” may have a different definition. As opposed to Bushwick Ave where almost the entire corridor turns green simultaneously, the signals may be sequentialized in the peak direction (similar to Manhattan’s Avenues), which makes the opposite direction seem “out of sync”.

5 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

I understand wanting the city to be safer, but vision zero is slowly becoming the #1 cause of congestion & traffic buildups, because certain streets built for 35 MPH speeds are limited to 25 MPH in places where they shouldn't be.

Taking into consideration the current late night Q53-SBS, it takes about 1 hour and 1 minute to go from 61st St to 116th St with the current speeds of 25 MPH. If Cross Bay Blvd was increased to 35 MPH, it would greatly reduce the travel time down to somewhere between 42-47 minutes. If TSP was installed, it would bring it further to around 38 minutes.

Slowly becoming? This has been in the top 3 causes of congestion & traffic buildups [and bus speed reductions] (outside Manhattan anyway) since 2014 when it was implemented. From my observations, the other two would be Blocking the box and TLC plated vehicles.

I agree, 25MPH severely slows down these buses, you can just feel it when riding. It’s like, yeah we’re in the bus lane but the bus is still poking along. Those bus lanes would be much more useful at 35MPH. Imagine the Q60 keeping up with local trains.