checkmatechamp13

Peak direction or reverse-peak? (Remember the college peak is basically the opposite of the Manhattan-bound peak) At a glance, it seems like in the afternoon, they pretty much all end in Rutherford, but in the morning, they start at various places (Paterson, Passaic, or Rutherford).

I said using the subway or driving. If the bus is the only available mass transit option, but is slow, then many will drive even if the bus is available. To say it's a myth is overgeneralizing. There's areas where buses are slow and areas where they aren't. There's areas where delays merging back into traffic are significant, and there's areas where they aren't. If they get a lot of feedback for certain stops, they can always restore them.

Do the buses that pass by the terminal but don't actually terminate there actually have to use the terminal? It defeats the purpose of combining them to create a one-seat ride if the bus has to pull into the bay and back out just to come around the block.

And part of the reason the average bus trip is so short is because they're so slow that most people making longer trips end up using the subway or driving. If buses were to be sped up, logic would dictate that the average would shift upward (to the exact extent is yet to be determined)

I-278 is the Bruckner...you've seen it used because that's what it is. He mentioned the Bruckner as the termination point of I-87. The area in question is between I-278 (Bruckner Expressway) and I-95 (Cross-Bronx Expressway). That being said, it was a simple typo transposing the two numbers (278 vs. 287). I'm pretty sure he knows that I-278 is the Bruckner Expressway (and also the BQE, Gowanus Expressway, and Staten Island Expressway).

Virtual and In-Person Meetings Will Inform The Public and Gather Feedback On Major Improvements To Walter Rand Transportation Center FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 26, 2023 Contact: Press Office 973-491-7078 CAMDEN, NJ – NJ TRANSIT will host virtual and in-person informational sessions as it continues to advance a reimagining of the Walter Rand Transportation Center (WRTC) in Camden. The Murphy Administration has committed $250 million to upgrade and enlarge the facility. NJ TRANSIT representatives will disseminate information about the project to attendees, and also allocate time for public comment sessions. The virtual meeting will be held at 3 p.m. on Monday January 30th , the in-person meeting will take place on January 30th at 6 p.m. at the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University located at 401 South Broadway, Camden, NJ. Registration can be completed by phone or e-mail. To register for the virtual session, click the following link: bit.ly/NJT_WRTCinfo. To register for the in-person session by phone or e-mail, call (856) 757-9154 or send an e-mail to camdencpinc@camdencpinc.com. FREE parking will be available in the adjacent parking garage directly behind the Medical School located at 520 Benson Street, Camden, NJ. The WRTC Improvement Project seeks to upgrade and enlarge the existing facility to accommodate the development renaissance currently underway in the City of Camden. It is currently contemplated that the project will be constructed on the existing site in Camden. With the emergence of a burgeoning educational and healthcare corridor in the downtown area and vicinity, a multi-million-dollar redevelopment of the nearby waterfront is being proposed to the west of downtown and the headquarters for both the Campbell Soup Company and Subaru of America to the east. The WRTC is envisioned to be replaced and expanded to accommodate growth throughout Camden County. The project would ultimately replace the existing facility with an expanded multi-purpose transit center that will provide an improved link for transportation in South Jersey. The new center would better accommodate the 26 bus lines that serve the facility; provide improved intermodal connectivity with the PATCO Speedline subway and the River LINE light rail; support intercity independent bus services; and provide additional parking, administrative offices, and value capture retail opportunities to the adjacent growing educational and healthcare corridor. It would also provide an opportunity for integration with zero-emissions buses.

I think the majority of those people are going to NJ Transit. (Either the trains at 34th Street/Penn Station, or the buses at 42nd Street/PABT). It'll definitely take some riders off the (in both directions, towards Penn Station and towards Jamaica), but I don't think the difference will be that much.

Some of my thoughts (most of which I've mentioned over here) in YouTube form:

My guess is it's probably some state law saying that because it's an operation that primarily serves NY residents, Metro-North needs to be involved. Apparently the NYC Sewage Department has a building out in Port Jervis: https://goo.gl/maps/VmvfDoDTLb9dByDU7

The station is solidly on the NY side of the border, pretty much in the middle of the town. I think it has more to do with the yard being used for NJT operations, combined with the fact that the majority of trains serving that station are non-contracted (to Metro-North) NJT trains.

Part of the problem is the fare increments are increments of $0.05 rather than $0.20. So in addition to giving dollars and quarters as change, you're also giving nickels and dimes.

Mostly online Zoom meetings for the time being. (The Community Board and MTA ones). There is one tonight for Bushwick. https://new.mta.info/project/brooklyn-bus-network-redesign https://mta.zoom.us/j/87221443989?pwd=L014cXlGQittY2pML3pSNlk1UTVjdz09

The schedule should be the same as Day After Thanksgiving: http://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://new.mta.info/document/99766

So I watched the video on double speed. At 1:41:00, the union rep spoke, and gave a pretty crappy explanation of what interlining is and why the MTA shouldn't do it. (He made it seem like the trips on the second route occur always occur after the meal break, and completely ignored that if the bus is late on the first trip, then any associated trips connected to that are also late, regardless of whether they are on the same route or a different route). He also talked about how certain communities were supposedly being "redlined" which is just adding a conspiracy theory for the sake of it. (Aren't they planning some multi-billion dollar project near Broadway Junction or something? There's million dollar homes in Brownsville...I don't think anywhere in Brooklyn is off-limits for gentrification).

What are you talking about? Are you seriously saying that people are selfish for choosing to use mass transit to get to/from the arena? Maybe you'd prefer that they drive so that people on the n6 can get stuck in even more traffic and miss even more of their connections.

I think the waiver expires 2/15/23 if I'm not mistaken. So if the date is anything past that point they need to have the full system installed.

They already have it that way on several lines (Bx40/42, Bx1/2, the 5th/Madison routes, the 3rd/Lexington routes offhand. There might be one or two corridors that I'm missing) On the 5th/Madison routes, it causes a problem for some trips, since if you need to take the M1 and then head off along 110th Street, all of the 110th Street crosstown routes are 5th/Madison routes, so you get charged a double fare. Congestion pricing isn't just about funding the MTA. It's about reducing congestion in one of the most transit-rich areas of the country. If you want to drive in, when there's other alternatives available, you should pay for that.

That makes no sense. You'd be rejecting anything out of major transfer points like Newark Penn, Journal Square, Hackensack, Paterson, etc

I'm not sure if eminent domain applies to services. I thought it only applied to physical infrastructure. That being said, how long ago was the #300 operated by NJT? Was it created when the Raritan Valley Line was cut back to High Bridge?

That's actually a pretty good idea. You could do Newark Airport, Newark Penn, and then straight to GWB. That being said, I'm not sure what the 300 has to do with this. The buses don't stop at EWR as far as I'm aware: https://web.coachusa.com/CoachUsaAssets/files/99/route300.pdf Maybe you're thinking of Trans-Bridge with its service to Branchburg/Allentown/Bethlehem? He's saying the ridership from the airport predominantly comes from points south of Downtown, and the #62 does a better job of covering that ridership, compared to the go28. (I would assume that some amount of those go28 trips he is proposing to eliminate would end up becoming #62s, either to the airport, or all the way to Elizabeth) It would be nice if they had the #107 allow EWR passengers to/from the terminals after 10pm in that case.

That's his point. He's specifically talking about ridership along Bloomfield Avenue, which is north of Downtown Newark.

@BM5 via Woodhaven Good point. I was going off the existing 7B schedule, and offhand figured that if it takes 15 minutes to get from Patchogue to Brookhaven Hospital, even with the straighter route through the northern part of North Bellport (which unfortunately also bypasses most of the residential areas currently served by the 7B), I didn't think it could be done with one bus, but I suppose it's possible. (The driving route shows 20 minutes for the S77, and 17 minutes for the S77Y, but with stops and traffic, it's definitely cutting it close) The thing I don't quite get is how the current S66 trips through North Bellport are scheduled for more runtime than the ones via South Country Road. I know North Bellport is a lower-income area than Bellport proper, but like you said, it's a lot of auto body shops, and most North Bellport residents probably take the S68 since it's somewhat more frequent/consistent than the S66 and better penetrates the residential areas. The thing that makes it a bit tricky is that while North Bellport has a lot of ridership potential (given its relatively low density compared to say, Brentwood, Central Islip, Patchogue, etc), the S66 does see a lot of longer-distance ridership to Mastic-Shirley and Riverhead. So the question becomes whether it's worth taking the more direct route, or the more residential route. I'd probably say the best way of going about it would be to have the S77 run a loop similar to the S52A/S52B. (So buses would basically take the current 7B Bellport route, then run straight down Old Country Road back to Patchogue). If you wanted to be cheap, you could have it as a one-way (hourly) loop, but realistically, I think the ridership is there for a two way loop (to put it into perspective, the 7B is on-par with the 1A and S20 in terms of riders per hour, and more efficient than the 6A and 7A, both of which are getting 30 minute headways for part or all of their route). Either that, or run the microtransit route for North Bellport (but in practice, buses would probably end up running in a similar loop anyway). For the S66, you could run the buses via the slight detour the S68 makes (Patchogue Avenue & Brookhaven Avenue). By the way, keep in mind that for Conifer Village, buses have to go all the way in and back out (Brookwood Lane becomes a narrow pedestrian path at the end). So the best that can realistically be done (in the case of your proposed North Bellport S66 branch) would be to have a stop at Martha & Dunton and hope that they open the gate to that pedestrian path. For Sills Road, yeah that's pretty much a full-blown highway (as is Woodside Avenue). That S77 will pretty much run nonstop from the hospital to the Savers/Stop & Shop shopping center, to the Bellport Outlets (at the expense of any riders in any residential areas north of Sunrise Highway). And yes, I definitely agree with your Deer Park/Wyandanch/Smithtown restructuring of the S5. There's no need for two routes from Deer Park to Smith Haven (and three routes from Brentwood to Smith Haven). Wyandanch loses its direct connection to Walt Whitman, but the S12 (or for that matter, the S4 for those south of the tracks) to the S1 will be sufficient (the other question of course, is whether those riders are heading to the mall itself, or using it as a transfer point).

You are right that one of the things the MTA mentioned was consolidating routes to make it easier to predict ridership patterns and figure out how much service to schedule along a given corridor. It depends if there was a direct route before. For example, how would somebody get from Queens Village to South Jamaica? They'd probably have to pass through Jamaica anyway, and at least they have a one-seat ride.

Does anyone happen to have a track map of where the switches are along the Morris & Essex Line? (Where trains can switch between the local and express tracks). I'm trying to see if I can put together a schedule that has more evenly spaced service towards NY Penn and Hoboken. (Right now, there's a lot of instances where you have multiple trains to Hoboken, followed by multiple trains to NY Penn, and huge gaps if you're trying to get to the opposite terminal, and I'm trying to see if there's a way to reorganize the services so you have more even spacing).

@B35 via Church I would tend to agree with leaving some rush hour #29s running out to Parsippany. I would assume you'd have buses run straight across U.S.46 and leave Lake Hiawatha with just the #871, correct? (Also, remind me again, if you were to combine the #871 and #872 into a Boonton - Morristown route (via Lake Hiawatha, via Parsippany Road, via Wyndham Hotels), would you run the resultant route every hour, or would you leave it running on a similar schedule as the current #871?)