CenSin

53 minutes ago, 4 via Mosholu said:

On 4/14/2024 at 3:39 PM, Lawrence St said:

I know this was probably asked before, but why was the  chosen to serve 96th St instead of the ?

It was already terminating at 57th Street, so the eventual extension to East Side - 96th Street ended up being seamless. The reason why the train wasn't chosen was because of some understandable want for familiarity with Astoria Service being all the N.

This can’t be it since the was already going to Astoria at that time. It also wouldn’t be the first time the (re)opening of a line shuffled a whole bunch of routes.

6 hours ago, Teban54 said:

If even railfans don't have perfect knowledge of where it's physically possible for trains to go, how can you expect that from the general public?

You are giving complex examples. Hence, I had qualified my statement:

10 hours ago, CenSin said:

“is it physically possible for this train to go anywhere else except X?” (where X is usually a station a few stops away along an isolated R.O.W.)

I expect some level of baseline knowledge from regular riders, such as knowing the stations their trains are stopping at every day.

9 minutes ago, darkstar8983 said:

 via Crosstown (makes identical  stops the entire way)

 switcheroo (  via Lexington or  via 7 Av)

The best answer to a passenger who doesn’t look like a tourist or out-of-towner: “is it physically possible for this train to go anywhere else except X?” (where X is usually a station a few stops away along an isolated R.O.W.)

Like… you wouldn’t board a  at New Lots Avenue and ask if it would go to Utica Avenue. The topology of the system all but guarantees it.

An  at Nassau Avenue? Where else could it possibly go in any direction? These are things—Markov chains or decision processes—that are learned through osmosis. A passenger who pays attention day-to-day learns these relationships and probabilities passively—no secret track map required.

2 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

We encountered NO delays (because riders were smarter back then)) compared to today’s folks in my opinion.

A very chatty conductor over the weekend on the  griped about this loud and clear during his train announcement at Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center going southbound. He had been making announcements the entire time from 34 Street–Herald Square (where I got on), while the train was in the station and as the train was in between stations.

After one of the passengers got off the train and walked up to the conductor to ask a—presumably—very stupid question which had already been answered for the past 15 minutes of droning announcements, the conductor made a very public speech about learning to pay attention—to the amusement of everyone else who wasn’t that idiot.

28 minutes ago, Goldeneye said:

PS - I am surprised there is not a brown circle M bullet for some strange reason (there is a diamond brown M though).

They retroactively retconned the code to be orange. That means every prior discussion about the brown  is now orange.

30 minutes ago, Calvin said:

I remember when the  had the G/O that has trains only run between 74 St-Broadway and Main St, there wouldn't be much service between Hudson Yards and Times Square.  Only Shuttle buses. But, with the Auto Show this week, there's a shuttle train service back and forth 5 minutes. 

When the broker asked me what objections I had to the Hudson Yards property, this was exactly my gripe. Yea, there is a subway station. But it’s out of service every other weekend, and it’s the only subway station around. Also, I don’t want to go to Queens. I only need it to get me to a train that I do need.

6 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

8 hours ago, Chris89292 said:

I wonder why the MTA hasn’t made Mets Willets point accessible, when will the board members act and do something🤷‍♂️

maybe you all should have thought about that before you started calling for Airtrain LGA to be canceled, as that would have given the entire Willets Point station complex a full renovation.

Building a backwards shuttle to the airport just to get a single accessible station is like… (help me out here, I can’t settle on an analogy.)

Wow… what the network glitch…

Wow… what the network glitch…

20 hours ago, Lex said:

22 hours ago, CenSin said:

Looks like Broken Windows is here to stay. What a great time to live in NYC. Now they have to treat the rest of the subway system like they treat the LIRR: it’s not a mobile home.

I can't tell if that's sincere or sarcastic...

Definitely sincere. Sarcastic remarks are always punctuated with /s for this very reason! 🙂

15 hours ago, Calvin said:

** Stolen items were found by fare evaders based on the name with evidence

Looks like Broken Windows is here to stay. What a great time to live in NYC. Now they have to treat the rest of the subway system like they treat the LIRR: it’s not a mobile home.

Sounds like they want to not have subway service for 74 years.

I’ve heard work trains honk their horns in the evenings, screeching of trains coming from West 8 Street, and clanking of wheels over Neptune Avenue into the creek in Coney Island for several decades. The trains have been there before I was even born. My family knew what kind of experience they were buying when we moved in.

I would also love for the elevated lines to be replaced, with a better elevated line or an underground one. But such projects are generational now, and those who get it started never live to see it done.

If only this announcement means they’d actually make an effort to peel themselves off of the mezzanine walls and catch people obvious farebeating in front of them. I saw a pair at Fulton Center hop over the turnstiles right in front of the cops 20 feet away. They were taking their sweet time getting over them and neither of the cops lifted a leg to give the chase.

13 hours ago, shiznit1987 said:

The tunnel  most definitely adds new stops: Court St, Boro Hall, Whitehall, Rector and Cortlandt.

In the same way that the Lexington Avenue tunnel above the express tracks adds stations like 51 Street, or that Northern Boulevard is an extra station along a separate tunnel and that the  and  are not really skipping it? lol

Same headline, different day:

• https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-subway-shooting-nyc-crime-afternoon-rush-hour-hoyt-schermerhorn/5226381/
• https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/brooklyn-s-district-attorney-will-not-pursue-charges-against-man-in-fatal-new-york-city-subway-shooting-citing-self-defense/ar-BB1jYN69

tl;dr: man got shot with his own gun after threatening another on train

6 hours ago, BelieveinMe said:

The M line has become a vital service, needing a service enhancement at both ends of the line.

The word “vital” isn’t how the MTA and bean counters are using the word. Relative to people who use the  and nothing else, of course it’s vital. But tell me what part of the subway system the serves that no other route already serves? Only the Myrtle Avenue branch. The is small fry in a big pond along with the , , and .

6 hours ago, BelieveinMe said:

What the MTA has done was make the best of bad decisions it has made in the past.

The choice to route express trains through 63rd was to reduce delays, and make the route useful.

The glaring missing link is, of course, the Queens Bypass route, that was essential to the 63rd st Tunnel's very existence.

The F was a compromise for the missing services, but never managed to live up to expectations.

The Night service is backwards also... however, the length of the F line makes over night express service necessary for crew comfort.

You got it here. It’s always about compromises whether it’s, routing around the tracks that do exist (as opposed to fantasy ones that do not), getting the best service bang for the buck (within the morass of the agency’s fiscal inefficiencies), evening out traffic (despite sending passengers where they do not want to be), or placating the union, the NYC subway is an average of all the necessities being met.

So while I agree that all of this is nice (if we had a boatload of cash to keep it going):

7 hours ago, BelieveinMe said:

Flipping the F and M East River crossing would make sense here.

7 hours ago, BelieveinMe said:

The F using 63rd st practically bypassing a key section of LIC hasn't worked for a large demographic.

They won’t happen without around-the-clock  service and station enhancements to mitigate the dangers of overcrowding Lexington Avenue/53 Street.

Yup. The barrier to coding your own forum is pretty low. It’s the migration work that’s often the hardest.

On 2/28/2024 at 5:28 PM, Q65A said:

https://www.masstransitmag.com/technology/facilities/shelters-stations-fixtures-parking-lighting/press-release/53097791/mta-new-york-city-transit-nyc-transit-pilot-enhances-visibility-of-no-standing-zone?o_eid=3654G2566189A9X&rdx.ident[pull]=omeda|3654G2566189A9X&utm_campaign=CPS240221125&utm_medium=email&utm_source=MASS+NewsViews+Newsletter

Quote

So far this year, seven MTA employees have been assaulted – four of the incidents involved suspects with at least 50 prior arrests. 

I wonder how we might have prevented this… say… not releasing those people after the third strike?

On 2/28/2024 at 5:55 PM, Chris89292 said:

Like that’s gonna stop criminals from attacking employees…. Waste of money in my opinion

On the upside, a conductor could easily spot trouble by observing the no standing zone, as anyone standing in violation of the warning automatically cast suspicion on themselves.

I also propose adding signs to the interior of trains, platforms, passageways, and elevators declaring: “no committing crimes!” /s

6 hours ago, Calvin said:

"Currently, NYPD is on lookout for farebeaters".

Ah. Looks like the “does broken windows policy work?” experiment is going to be over. We’ve gone full circle back to doing it again.

On 3/5/2024 at 10:45 AM, Wallyhorse said:

I stay well in touch with happenings on the upper east side.

I’m willing to bet a good chunk of forum members here actually live in or around the Upper East Side or travel to/through there. They’re forming their opinions based on first-hand experience. It’s an opinion derived from second-hand information versus that.

1 minute ago, Wallyhorse said:

I know the area growing up there

That’s the problem: you don’t live there now.

i lived in Queens a couple decades ago. I would defer to people who actually live there today.

3 hours ago, Kamen Rider said:

You “suspect” a lot of things…

“Suspicion” in my book is usually reserved for thoughts that have a high enough probability of being true that warrants further investigation and maybe action.

This to 145 Street is unheard of outside of NYCTF…

An interesting side note: there are also people who make proclamations which are so consistently wrong, people take what they say and automatically believe the opposite of it. Look up the Jim Cramer curse and the Inverse Cramer ETF for examples.

16 hours ago, slantfan4281 said:

- real time updates, before trains would just stop in the tunnel with no announcements

Uh… many of those updates are pure 🐂💩. The conductor tells you “we’re being held by a red signal up ahead” for reasons as diverse as:

• The T/O is stopping to take a leak out the front of the train.
• Someone is getting of/off the train (at a yard, for example).

Yeah. I know the train stopped. But I could do without the fake reason.

16 hours ago, slantfan4281 said:

- countdown clocks everywhere, before you had no idea when a train would come - I once waited 45 mins for the  one night

16 hours ago, slantfan4281 said:

- having service changes online rather than just showing up at the station and finding out you need to make an extra transfer or backtrack

The in-station feeds and online updates are definitely helpful nowadays.

I see a in 1 minute at Canal Street and an in 21 minutes… I’m getting on the even if I have to take a shuttle bus to Coney Island from Brighton Beach.

I see huge gaps on NYC Subway Stringlines and I’m gonna walk the extra block to a different trunk line.

Between the in-station countdown clocks and the Stringlines page, I usually trust the in-station countdown clocks since the apps that use the MTA’s datafeeds don’t always get complete information. I’ve been on ghost trains that didn’t show up at all on Stringlines.

1 hour ago, darkstar8983 said:

The southbound local track connection can merge right before the first crossover of local track to express track. Just dig the 63 St tunnel connector lower so that it can pass under Central Park. Then have it merge with the  track right before the interlocking with the .

I’m not seeing the solution.

The southbound express track hugs the southbound local track all the way from from 72 Street to 59 Street. Going under and merging in from the western side of Central Park West wouldn’t work since Central Park West is built to be under the western half of Central Park West. Shortly after passing 72 Street, both southbound tracks veer west to make room for the northbound tracks. You can see sidewalk grating south of 62 Street, which means the track connection has to be made at or just south of 63 Street. Obviously, in the IND style, the curve radius has to be big enough to occupy an entire Manhattan street block. So working backwards from that point, the 63 Street connection would have to reach as high as 65 Street for the ramp and curve.

22 hours ago, darkstar8983 said:

And yes they should build a connection between 59’St Columbus Circle (north of) and Lexington Av-63 St, connecting to the local track.

The express tracks maybe—depending on how many streets north the connection has to be made to connect to 63 Street. There’s a long stretch of switches and flyovers.

Connecting to the local tracks would probably be not doable. At least one of the locals track would be quite difficult to reach.

1. The southbound local track is entirely underneath the west side of Central Park West.
2. Where the flyovers are, the northbound local track and both express tracks wall off the southbound local track.

It’s shielded from the left and right.

A track connection north of 59 Street would be a terrible idea: you have a junction just south of the station. Either 8 Avenue or 6 Avenue would have to be kicked off the express tracks, because it would result in a merge and diverge choke point at that one station.

A new platform underneath the two levels? lol. Where south of the station would there be room to make a track connection?