67thAve

30 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

...and just what is supposed to be funny about no bus service?

It had to do more with the bait-and-switch of the map concept, rather than topic at hand.

Frankly put, it probably wasn't funny to begin with. My apologies.

2 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

ouch...

That should read "those that are seriously SCARED TO USE the subway now"

Part of that is because of the bad PR public transport gets regarding cleanliness and health (even before the pandemic). Government advice (not just in NY, but in other places domestically and internationally) has also stated that, in effect, public transit should be the "mobility of last resort", which makes the recovery process even more difficult.

Scaremongering doesn't particularly work well. Instead, what the MTA should be doing is reassure people through quality marketing (something which the agency is NOT good at) that subways and buses are indeed safe to ride.

Case in point, take a gander at Transdev UK's PSA:

After the debacle of my "future MTA bus map", it's time for some serious policy proposals regarding the subway in the face of this adversity. Of course, these are still dire (as should be expected). All services should expect sizable reductions to frequencies, so this post solely covers changes in route alignments:

 - No changes.

 - No changes.

 - Late night and weekend service eliminated. Current weekday service pattern is retained.

 - Rush-hour trips to New Lots Avenue eliminated.

 - White Plains express and Nereid Avenue services eliminated. Weekday service is cut back to Bowling Green, and weekend service is reduced to operate as a shuttle from E. 180th to Eastchester.

 - Express service eliminated.

 - Express service eliminated.

Times Square  - Only one track will be in operation.

 - Elimination of Rockaway Park service.

 - Service reduced to peak hours only between 145th Street and Brighton Beach.

 - No changes.

 - No changes.

 - Jamaica/179th trips eliminated.

 - Elimination of Culver express service.

 - Southern terminus truncated to Smith-9th Street from Church Avenue.

/ - Elimination of  service. In addition, weekend  service now terminates at Essex Street instead of Broad Street.

 - One out of two trains operates from 8th Avenue to Myrtle/Wyckoff only, 24/7.

 - Late-night and weekend service cut back to operate solely from Broadway/Myrtle to Middle Village.

 - Now operates local on Broadway at all times.

 - No changes.

 - Late-night service cut back to operate solely between 59th and 95th Streets in Brooklyn.

Franklin Avenue  - Eliminated.

Rockaway Park  - Eliminated.

- Eliminated.

Frankly put, what I posted was meant to be a joke.

I guess I should've posted it on SubChat. Perhaps reception would have been a bit warmer there.

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

There will not be a situation where there's absolutely no bus service in this city in the next year & a half... Stop it.

There will be bus service... but it may not be the MTA who is running it.

I expect that dollar vans will proliferate in the coming years and that the MTA may "pull out" of areas where it dumps sizable resources into bus operations, only to continuously lose ridership on a yearly basis. This, of course, is due to the dire financial straits the agency is in.

Will the map of the MTA bus network be blank like the one I posted? Probably not. But it will certainly shrink quite a bit.

Decided to create a bus map of the future MTA bus network with the way the current financial situation of the agency is.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1KmiMAixf5hf1ijCGPh17-5ecOStJi2p3&usp=sharing

2 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Yikes.... This system map is plain old, bad.... HTC is a major hub, but it is not as vital as having the whole county bus map focally centered around it.... At first glance, it would have you think that everything emanates from HTC, with the skyblue colored lines being rather irrelevant.... Among other things, the map pretty much says f**k you if you're not riding between any two major xfer points.... Doesn't even show the main streets of operation buses run along...

I'm going to go out on a limb & say they've bit this style/layout from another provider.... This is eerily reminiscent of something I've seen many moons ago (can't recall which city's bus system though)..... I will say that it does look cleaner than the previous schedule style/layout....

As far as what you're saying, there would be more room (letter space) for abbreviations, if they got rid of that crowd predictor bullshit (depicted with the green dots)....

Yeah. I also noticed the similarity, but I can't put my finger on which one...

As for the old style, it was the same design that the Savannah bus network (and, until recently, the New Orleans RTA) utilized.

If you want to see real cookie-cutter timetable design, most Australian timetables are designed by one firm (Transit Graphics), using a few relatively standardized templates. Not that I mind - they're quite good (and, to their credit, they've diversified the layouts in the past two years)!

8 hours ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

The new schedules look really sloppy, and make it harder to gather information. I mean, one has to consistently look at the front page to find out what the abbreviations mean in terms of the timepoints. The only thing that has somewhat improved is the route map. Here's the n6 timetable.

http://www.nicebus.com/NICE/media/NiceBusPDFSchedules/NICE-n6_MapSchedule.pdf

Personally, I like many of the new elements of the schedules. They're slimmer and more condensed (making them easier to carry), the route maps are a big improvement, and the crowding indicator is a real plus.

My biggest gripes are that the actual times do feel a bit cramped, and it is undoubtly confusing in regards to the indication and abbreviation of timepoints.

There are plenty more confusing tables out there, however. Take HSR's #5 Delaware, for instance, which even has a disclaimer on how confusing it is!

https://www.hamilton.ca/sites/default/files/media/browser/2020-06-02/route-5-delaware-covid-june.pdf

3 hours ago, CenSin said:

And no one wants to be responsible for more fare hikes. Despite the dire situation, Chairman Foye pledged there would be no “pandemic fare increase” in the foreseeable future.

This is a situation where a fare hike is absolutely necessary to keep the system afloat.

I would even suggest implementing peak/off-peak fares on the subway and buses to encourage social distancing and reduce crowding at peak hours. This could easily be done in conjunction with the full rollout of OMNY.

23 minutes ago, R32 3838 said:

 

 

How About No, Making things private makes things worse. look at NICE bus for example.

 

gotta love the anti union talk, Without a Union we wouldn't have the working rights we have now

The private-public partnership that is NICE failed on account of the shoestring budget Transdev had to work with, as well as the nature of the operating area (sprawling suburbia with a mostly captive clientele is not conducive to being desirable for private transport investment). Yet I still have no doubt that Transdev managed the situation better from a financial standpoint than the MTA could ever do so.

Privatization of this design has been successful in cities throughout the EU (particularly in France, where the local government issues contracts to private transit operators for X number of years with certain requirements and stipulations, such as investing in electric vehicles or expanding service hours). The reality is that the United States and Canada are "behind the curve" of public transit investment, as most places in other developed nations have already moved to this model of private outsourcing on a large scale (with the exceptions of some minor holdouts, such as Northern Ireland and parts of Tasmania).

The fact that such a "union-unfriendly" idea as privatization can be undertaken in a country such as France to this scale indicates that perhaps unions overhype the threats of the concept (understandable, as it gives them less power and less political clout). But driving a bus is not the same as working in a slaughterhouse with poor ventilation or blasting steel for ten hours straight. I understand that the employees who spend their days working in the depot and not driving the buses can suffer similarly, but working conditions have improved in the past century, and the money saved from deunionization can not only be utilized to rectify problems such as poor ventilation through infrastructure upgrades, but improve service - all while saving money.

I think that the proper course of action for the MTA at this point to salvage the budget requires some drastic actions. I think the core of this should be the privatization of the services which the MTA provides, in conjunction with deunionizing transit employees to reduce overtime, benefit pay, and various other cost-intensive forms of spending. The MTA would therefore shift its focus from an organization directly involved in the operations of transit to one which merely oversees network, schedule, and fare coordination.

Ideally, I would subdivide the MTA into the following contracts (ideally for 5- or 10-year periods) for privatization:

Subway:

A Division

B Division plus Staten Island Railway

Bus:

Contracts would be doled out to private companies on a depot-by-depot basis.

LIRR:

Port Washington Branch

Main Line electric services

South Shore electric services

Diesel services

MNR:

Only the Hudson and Harlem lines would be privatized, each as its own contract. This is due to the nature of Metro-North's other services, which require coordination with other states to achieve ideal results.

1 hour ago, Union Tpke said:

You should share your extensive international collection. I learned a lot from it.

Oh, very well.

Here's the list.

A few notes:

1) This covers bus timetables ONLY. Some of these timetables (particularly those which are comprehensive books covering a full geographic area) also contain timetables for other forms of transit (trains, tram, subway, ferry, even cable cars in the case of some Swiss items).

2) I do not count duplicate items. Therefore, this list may be seen as a list of "unique items" in my collection.

3) While the list does not date my items, almost all non-American stuff (with the exception of some British and Canadian items, as well as a few scattered items from other nations,  such as a no-longer-published book covering bus services in Stavanger) dates from 2018 at earliest. Even most of the items I have from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States typically are from 2017 at earliest, with some notable exceptions (for instance, my STM items from Montreal date from August 2015, and the aforementioned Stavanger publication is dated December 2014).

4) Some networks listed do not indicate how many items in my collection are from that operator. Some may not even indicate a single item! This is either because the item is damaged and is kept indexed solely because I have been unable to find a replacement copy (an example is my timetables for Belfast's #2 bus route, which is not included in the total Translink tally), the "timetable" is effectively a frequency guide (this is often the case with Spanish items), or that information on that operator's services are consolidated in another operator's publication (an example here is found in the transit systems of Bettendorf and Davenport - both networks publish their timetables in the booklet produced by Quad Cities Metrolink).

5) Some items are included on the list on account of technicalities (for instance, the Market-Frankford Line timetable in my collection is counted as a bus timetable despite it being a rail service because it contains full details on the Night Owl bus service which follows the corridor, including a complete timetable).

6) None of these items are printouts. Some, however, are or may be print-on-request, but are formatted well enough to be considered "official" (examples of this are York Region and non-V/Line timetables from the Australian state of Victoria).

Without further ado, here is the list:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jx3ucky3k1sIJAScy_UsAUyyFMf6H5RK/view?usp=sharing

And yes, feel free to ask for pictures of specific items.

Compared to everyone else around these parts, my MTA collection more or less steers towards the "contemporary" aspect of only "surface-level collecting" (timetables and maps), and is much smaller in scope.

Even then, most of my items date from 2014 to 2018... I really should replace the maps I have, IMHO...

Anyways, here's a poor-quality photo of the stacks of timetables (solely for scale, not showing each individual leaflet):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dE1zAcm3AYWP6Du5XxdXHA-z2ATOMizo/view

Now, if you really wanted to see some interesting stuff, just ask @Union Tpke or @Around the Horn as to what I have in my collection... we were fortunate enough to encounter each other many a time at college and both have been at the receiving end of my addiction in the past few semesters, much to a mixture of their excitement and chagrin.

1 hour ago, lirr42 said:

All of these are arguments for why we should continue propping up the status quo, not focusing on where the greatest demand could be with a properly designed, frequent feeder network.  The point is not to continue to provide a one seat ride for every existing route that carries a dozen riders per bus with only hourly service, but rather to deliver an overall improvement in service to all potential passengers (both existing riders AND those that currently drive).  Buses should collect riders from more sparsely populated areas and feed them to faster and more frequent rail/light rail/BRT routes.

In 2017, only about 3% of Nassau County residents traveled by bus on an average weekday.  The current system is clearly not designed properly to serve the vast majority of residents.  Think bigger.

And it would probably still be the same 3% - you'll just be spending an extreme amount of money to run empty buses on a good chunk of these routes.

This is, to be blunt, an awful redesign.

Firstly, there are no bus connections to the subways in Queens (except for Far Rockaway).

Most of the frequent corridors make little sense. For instance, the Foxhurst Line deviates southwards to serve Baldwin Harbor, an area with less ridership potential than the Merrick Road corridor.

But for brevity, here are some gripes I have with my local area (West Hempstead):

1) The H55 (a replacement for much of the N6) doesn't need to deviate to serve West Hempstead LIRR. And honestly, why did you decide to effectively split the N6 into two when it's objectively a well-designed route as it is (high frequencies, heavy ridership, and 24/7 service)?

2) I actually don't mind the idea of a circular service serving parts of Hempstead (the H11). The problem is that the route you chose for the circular serves the portions of Hempstead with the lowest densities and highest incomes, and therefore the lowest possible ridership.

3) The H80 (a replacement for the N31/32) is a complete waste. Most of the 31/32's ridership north of Five Corners are long-haul riders coming from Far Rockaway/Inwood and heading to Hempstead. Since the H80 does not run south of Lynbrook, ridership is effectively castrated. You also deviated the route from West Hempstead's secondmost important street (Hempstead Avenue), which also has some high levels of poverty (particularly north of Poplar) and routed it down Nassau Boulevard and Cherry Valley... two roads with little to no commerce (except for a Stop and Shop), higher incomes, and less density.

4) Lakeview has no bus service. NONE. Lakeview is a relatively impoverished area with no rail access.

On a sidenote, I designed my own new NICE network a while back:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/drive?state={"ids"%3A["1pCzXd7Coxy9IFy0lfZZICs0GbxmQi6be"]%2C"action"%3A"open"%2C"userId"%3A"111641702466247885006"}&usp=sharing

3 hours ago, Lawrence St said:

Could this potentially lead to another similar 2010 budget cut? I could see the getting discontinued, again...

I actually think that subway and bus service will remain (relatively) unchanged.

Commuter rail passengers are going to take the brunt of the cuts this time around, and they're going to be severe.

I'm talking potential permanent branch closures (West Hempstead and Belmont, for instance), elimination of nearly all ticket offices, and elimination of off-peak fare severe.

With the MTA's currently dire financial situation requiring the reallocation of limited financial resources in a particularly acute manner, what are some potential "doomsday" cuts we could see to the LIRR and MNR in the coming year or two?

Here are some ideas which I floated in my head for the Long Island Railroad:

LIRR:

Systemwide: Eliminate CityTicket program, eliminate Atlantic Ticket program, implement higher fares, increase parking fees, remove off-peak discounts, and close all ticket offices besides Penn Station, Jamaica, and Atlantic Terminal.

Babylon Branch: Eliminate all mid-day and reverse-peak express service.

Montauk Branch: Reduce service east of Speonk to one train a day, Monday through Friday outside of summer months. Summer weekend service remains, but "premium fares" with a different pricing structure than regular LIRR fares will be put in place.

Oyster Bay Branch: Eliminate all non-peak service.

Port Washington Branch: Reduce train service between Great Neck and Port Washington from every half-hour to every hour during non-peak hours.

Ronkonkoma Branch: Eliminate all service east of Ronkonkoma, with the exception of summertime weekend service between Ronkonkoma and Greenport, which will be operated with a "premium fare" structure.

West Hempstead Branch: Reduce service to two round-trip trains a day, weekdays only (1 AM Peak, one PM Peak), from West Hempstead to Jamaica.

Belmont Park Branch: Eliminate all service except during the Belmont Stakes.

Of course, the easiest way to solve any budget crunch would be to simply do the following: rein in the unions, and install turnstiles at all LIRR stations so conductors are no longer needed, thus saving on labor costs.

Since the coronavirus pandemic is going to severely impact the MTA's already-dire financial straits, what are some potential solutions we can think of from the bus front to save cash?

For me, the most obvious one is to shift all bus operations to private contractors, as NYCDOT used to do, on a depot-by-depot basis to ensure market competition. As controversial as it sounds, this may be the best course of action, as if the pandemic lasts as long as it is expected to, the MTA isn't getting back on its feet without massive cuts which will make 2010 look like a minor service reduction.

Another possibility is simply to abandon territory where the MTA competes with dollar vans, as many cash-strapped transit agencies did in the ex-Soviet Union during the 1990s.

Neither of these are very appealing, but they may need to be done. Of course, the obvious answer is to break up the unions, but that's never getting off the ground.

On 2/8/2020 at 2:50 AM, N6 Limited said:

https://patch.com/new-york/bayside/uber-launches-new-service-help-lirr-riders-make-their-train

I wonder if they'll pool riders to the stations.

Finally, a reason to cut the N57 and put that money somewhere more useful, such as better bus service in Elmont.

3 hours ago, 67thAve said:

Baldwin Harbor, yes. West Hempstead, no.

The West Indians you see in West Hempstead are typically home aides and babysitters for the area's rapidly expanding Orthodox Jewish community, which probably is about 1/3rd of the population in the town, and a sizable majority within the triangle bounded by Hempstead Avenue, Woodfield Road, and Eagle Avenue.

I made some pretty severe typos in this post.

Next time, I ought to proofread a bit more!

22 hours ago, NY1635 said:

West Indians are taking over West Hempstead and Baldwin Harbor.

Baldwin Harbor, yes. West Hempstead, no.

The West Indians you see in West Hempstead are typically home aides and babysitters for the area's rapidly expanding Orthodox Jewish community, which probably is about 1/3th of the population in the area as whole now, and a sizable majority in the triangle of Hempstead Avenue, Woodfield Road, and Eagle Avenue.

27 minutes ago, B35 via Church said:

Lastly, I'll rephrase my M22 question...... You mention uni-directional looping in the Lower East side, so Is the only terminal of the route in Battery Park City? That much is not clear....

There would be a terminus somewhere north of Delancey Street for laying over. As for where, I am not certain.

The reason for the use of the term "unidirectional loop" has to do with the length of the one-way portion.

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

I don't find this to be "roast" worthy, per se.... Pretty dope that you get to have this for a college project though.... In any event:

M4/"M105": Doesn't need to run south of W. 135th st, if it's only going to run to the old Amsterdam depot site.... Both of these should be branches of one route, not 2 separate routes.....

M5: Looks like you're trying to cater this to a demographic, while having Riverbank serve as nothing more than a convenient terminal.... Coverage route, at best....

M7: More or less how I'd restructure the M55

M9: Running this past Park Row to South Ferry is a waste of time & mileage.... You already have the M7 running along Broadway/Trinity for coverage anyway...

M11: Good grief, What is it with having all these routes ending at the old Amsterdam depot site (M4, M11, M100, M101, M104, "M105")?
Anyway, If you want to cut it back to 125th, all you really have to do it end it somewhere along the Grant houses (either along 125th or along Broadway)....

M14A/D: Unreasonable to have all M14 service end at Abingdon Sq.... There's no space for that.

M15: Forget about ending all M15 service at the Rutgers houses.... That's an immense amount of service for those folks, south of Madison....

M20: Yeah, but a bus running non-stop from Battery Pl. to BMCC isn't worth leaving the southern section of Battery Park City with nothing (you're also taking the M9 away from that part of BPC).... You're making the thing too useless south of Canal; what riderbase are you attempting to make it faster to get to South Ferry for...... May as well end this at Chambers st, if it's not going to serve BPC...

M22: So is the only terminal of the route in BPC?

M31/M57: Probably one of the better plans I've seen that involves these two routes....

M34: Where is it serving Bellevue at?

M98: If you're going to stop it dead at 125th, you may as well run it all the way up to Inwood.... Give it more of a riderbase.

M103: IDC how much extra service you give it, the problem with that is that the M15 moves at a better rate than the M103 south of Houston.... MUCH better.... Nothing serving Bowery needs to run down to South Ferry.

"M110": I don't see this panning out/being too successful.... I'd take the E.106 portion & have it cut through Harlem via Lenox, A.C. Powell, or Fred. Douglass....

"M111": Don't really see this as being all that necessary.

M116: Nah, the M116 is as good as it's going to get on that end.... Running it along W. 106th serves the people on that side of the route better than it running via W. 110th would - even if it doesn't directly serve the ....

To clarify, the map itself was not for a university project, per se... it's the outgrowth of a 24-page group paper I (mostly) wrote.

The M4 and M105 run south to 125th Street to provide connectivity to the IND at 125th Street.

Yes, the M5 is explicitly designed as a coverage route. It's also designed to replace the current north-south portion of the M57 along West End Avenue.

I took in your suggestion for the M9 and cut it back to Fulton/Broadway, and also adjusted the M11 to terminate on the south side of 125th instead of by Amsterdam Depot.

The city could always make more layover space for the M14A/D with some "political maneuvering" (i.e, removal of parking spaces).

The M15 was cut back to the foot of Allen Street because Water and Pearl Streets because the M103 is better-aligned to serve those portions in terms of street patterns and traffic patterns.

As a concession to demand, I have decided to reinstate M20 service through the southern portion of Battery Park City... but only for the southbound direction. Waiting to turn left out of BPC onto West can take a while, so northbound service via West is retained.

The M34 serving Bellevue was apparently a mistake. It doesn't. Might want to get my eyes checked...

The new M98 is designed to provide a frequent and direct to Lex/125 from the north-south routes in the Heights. The service was designed explicitly with transferring in mind (if this network was implemented in reality, one trip would give you unlimited transfers in a 90 minute period).

For the reason the M103 was extended south, see what I wrote up about the M15.

I wouldn't have the M110 run north-south through Harlem, since that makes the route fight two different traffic flows (north-south and east-west). You'll notice that almost all routes in this new network are almost entirely north-south or east-west, with the exceptions being the M14A and M14D.

The M111 is a coverage route and effectively a partial replacement of the M55. It's also designed with tourists in mind to an extent, hence why it terminates at the Met.

With the M116, I felt that serving the subway at 110th was an improvement over running it down 106th. It also makes the route faster through increased directness.

1 hour ago, jaf0519 said:

The M100 and M125 were included in the Bronx Redesign plan as the are in a Bronx depot.

Only differences are that the M100 stays on Broadway and terminates at Amsterdam Ave/125 St instead of looping around by the M104 terminal, and that the M125 continues to the 3 Ave-149 St station to cover the former Bx15 route.

I kind of feel that the M100 (in the MTA’s Bronx Plan) should either turn onto 125 St and terminate where the Bx15 does at 12 Ave, or should you around via LaSalle St and Broadway because the buses will need to turn around to head back to Inwood anyway, so why not directly connect to the  train at the end.

Also you have quite a few routes doing the M104 loop at 129 St. 

I chose that as a place for a terminal since it's an existing layover point. May not be the best option, though feel free to suggest others.

27 minutes ago, Cait Sith said:

1. You can't have local service make stops along West Street southbound, that entire section is a greenway and a bike path.

2. Making the M103 the only bus on Lexington is a bad, bad idea.

3. I don't really see a need to send the M7 down to South Ferry, ridership south of 42nd already seems to be lacking in some aspect.

 

1) Per your suggestion, I decided to realign much of the southbound M20 routing along West Street onto Greenwich. Service will still be eliminated into Battery Park City due to service redundancy, as the Downtown Connector already serves those areas (though I would increase service hours on the Downtown Connector to make up for this via city subsidy).

2) The M103 would see service levels increase to that of the current combined M101/M102/M103 trunk along its existing route. The M101 has to go, since the route effectively serves both as a crosstown along 125th and two separate north-south services (Amsterdam north of 125th and Lexington/3rd south of 125th), making it three routes bundled into one in its current form. The M102 is rendered redundant by the existence of a realigned M3 providing bus service along Lenox Avenue, while also providing service to East Midtown, albeit via 5th/Madison instead of Lexington/3rd.

3) M7 service to South Ferry is designed to replace the existing southbound alignment of the M20 and the northbound alignment of the M55.