Mysterious2train

True, but if it's taking the MTA several decades just to build the Manhattan section of the line, I can't really blame them for not taking outer borough extensions into consideration when planning. I don't know about the actual capacity of the cars, but for a 600-ft long train with 10 cars, the loading guidelines call for no more than 1,450 per train (145 people per car). That's how the capacity in the graph I posted is calculated. Cancel Phase 2, and a new Bronx plan being drawn would need its own environmental review, tacking even more time on to the process. Look, the MTA doesn't hate the Bronx. They're not trying to cheat Bronx residents. But everything comes back to New York's ridiculous construction costs. When you can only build stubs because your money doesn't go far, you have to get the most bang for your buck. And if the MTA can still draw a notable amount of people off the Lex by transferring 125th St for much less than building up to 149th St or beyond, it's completely understandable that they would build a terminal in Harlem. Don't think I don't want a Bronx extension, because I definitely do, but we have to be a little pragmatic here. The MTA can build tons of outer boroughs lines, but without capacity in Manhattan to handle that new ridership, what good is it? Sure, it's not a good look that the MTA is focusing on Manhattan instead of the outer boroughs, but that's where the capacity is needed most. And really, if the MTA can't finish the line in Manhattan, how can they focus on the outer boroughs? Keep in mind it's taking decades just to build in Manhattan. Yes, but if you're using this as a point against a terminal at 125th St, wouldn't this be the same for a Bronx extension? Ridership would be a lot less until the line in Manhattan is finished. Unlike what happened at Lexington Av-63rd St, as far as we know, that's no extra infrastructure at Grand St station beyond what's used for the . If there was, the MTA would probably try to use it. Grand St station (not talking about the tunnels under Confucius Plaza) doesn't really have any existing provisions for expansion any more than your typical 2-track side platform station. Although the Chrystie St connection construction preceded the start of the SAS project, since the two were directly related, I'm pretty surprised Grand St doesn't have more provisions for SAS service. Hindsight I guess. For what it's worth, the MTA projected that a cross-platform transfer at Chrystie St (shallow Chrystie option) would get a lot more ridership than a vertical West 4 St-style transfer (deep Chrystie option), but of course the ends doesn't always justify the means. (2020 right? What a laugh)

Also, the stations are the most expensive part of new construction so adding more stations is going to noticeably drive up costs. Even if stations at 138th and 149th wouldn't be as deep as a 125th/Lexington station, they would still have to be somewhat deep due to passing underneath the and like you pointed out. A 125th/2nd terminal would be cheaper, but not connecting to anything, would have a lot less ridership. For what it's worth, the MTA projects that most of the ridership in Harlem would be coming from 125th St, and most of that would be people transferring from the , at least during the AM rush hour. (Of almost 14,000 people getting on the SAS at 125th St, almost 12,000 people would be transferring from the Lex) Keeping that in mind, building up to 3rd Av-149th St instead of turning to 125th/Lex might draw some more riders, but could that bring in enough additional riders to justify the increased cost? I'm not so sure. Considering how grossly inflated our construction costs are, the MTA is arguably trying to get the most bang for its buck by building a terminal at 125th/Lex.

If the was the only service running to Astoria, why would it run on 20 min headways? If the was sent to 96th the would be running to Astoria at its normal 10-min headways. That's what I meant by running normally.

How long will it take the MTA to just send the to 96th and have the run normally during this GO?

Quoting from the L train thread Provision as in, some infrastructure that already exists? None that I know of. Not necessary, Wallyhorse. The eastern end of Third Avenue station on the is actually pretty close to Second Avenue; that's why a transfer to the SAS is proposed from that station and not from First Avenue. On another note, looking at this month's committee meetings, it looks like the plans for Phase 2 have decided against the tail tracks up Second Avenue to 129th St that were proposed originally. Not surprised at all since it's not a crucial element, but still disappointed.

Shuttle gets a lot of usage despite paralleling the . It's right in midtown; also helps that that there isn't much else in crosstown service, that's convenient anyway. Through service would be great to add a direct route from the East Side downtown to the West Side uptown. But "expensive rebuild" is a real understatement. Any new track connecting the downtown 7th Av track to the eastbound/southbound 42nd St track would have to pass underneath the 7th Av mainline and the Broadway Line too. Seems nigh-impossible. Same with going from Lexington Av northbound to 42nd St westbound/northbound. As for transfers with station complexes, if I'm transferring from the Lexington Av line to the Nassau St line, unless I'm going from uptown to (which is fairly straightforward), I'd rather transfer at Chambers St/Brooklyn Bridge. The Chambers St passage* is fairly short; the transfers at Canal St and Fulton St (again, aside from uptown to uptown ) are longer and more complex. * - The one around the middle of the station; the one at the northern end is longer.

Apps that use the MTA's metadata, like Transit or Google Maps show every stop along bus routes.

IINM only one or two of the trains to 96th are stored in the tail tracks. The rest just turn around and go back to Brooklyn. This, and also Second Avenue makes good use of the extra few trains.

I like how the service advisory mentions the in some places but not in others. Also how the is not mentioned at Lex Av-63 St in the "Key Transfer Stations" box. Typical MTA I guess. Anybody notice how they seem to have stopped uploading Fastrack maps online?

I went through the turnstile data for Second Avenue/Lexington Avenue stations on the Upper East Side to look at how many people are getting on. I picked Thursdays for the last several weeks, mostly arbitrarily. I only included entries and not exits. I added up the numbers manually, which is a little tedious, so I only included a few days; otherwise I would have included more data. Let's hope I added correctly. Here's the turnstile data, which is updated every Saturday; click on "Current" to see how to read it. I made some charts. We can see that ridership on the Lex starts dropping even before the SAS opens, presumably because of the holidays. So in a few weeks once everything is back in full swing, we'll hopefully get a clearer picture of what's going on. Right now, 72 St-2 Av has slightly surpassed 68 St-Hunter College and 96 St (Lex) in ridership, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changes once the schools fully start back up. Just for comparison, here's the average weekday ridership from 2015: 68 St-Hunter College: 35,640 77 St: 36,797 86 St: 65,948 96 St: 28,060 Lex Av-63 St: 16,098

A 125th St crosstown, by connecting all the north-south subway lines, would make it easier to go from one side of the Bronx to the other. Or from one side of the Bronx/Upper Manhattan to the other side. I don't really think it should be built before the rest of the SAS and outer borough expansions, but it should absolutely be built at some point.

First two images are from the Community Board 6 presentation located here, which is linked on the SAS Publications page; the third is from the FEIS, section 8, Displacement and Relocation, specifically here.

The only transfers definitely planned are to the at 125th and the at Grand St, since they're pretty unavoidable. The other transfers considered ( at 55th, at 42nd and at 14th) are tentative for now. 55 St is planned to be closer to Lex-53rd than two blocks away. The south end of the station will be around 53rd, and the eastern end of the platform is east of 3rd Av. It'll be a lot shorter to the than to the . If built as planned, the to transfer should also be shorter than the to transfer.

http://travel.mtanyct.info/serviceadvisory/routeStatusResult.aspx?tag=ALL&date=12/31/2016&time=&method=getstatus4 The G.O. originally planned for Saturday (no service between 42nd St and Queensboro Plaza) isn't listed anymore. Was it scrapped? Hopefully someone realized how dumb it is, although the fact it was scheduled in the first part is even dumber.

Huh, you're right. How did they forget something so simple? I mean, really?

- Out of the tons of people getting on at Grand Central, consider that some of them could be people coming from Times Square or Hudson Yards on the and who may be able to take the instead. - Where are you getting this idea from nobody will move from the to the ? 86th St is a major stop for the ... just for example, somebody going from 86th St to Union Square who takes the now could take the instead. - You write off new two-seat rides as a negative, but somebody who gets on the and switches to the express to go to Lower Manhattan would already have a two-seat ride. Also consider that some riders may be willing to turn a one-seat ride on the Lex to a two-seat ride on the to another line if it means having a better chance of getting a seat, reducing walking distance from/to their origin/destination, or avoiding the perception of crawling on the Lex express tracks and infinite dwell times. - Phase 1 doesn't directly help people going above ~103 St, but it does indirectly help them if they can get on slightly less crowded Lex trains thanks to riders who took the instead. Anecdote: I have a friend who lives in the vicinity of York Avenue and 72nd St; right now he takes the directly downtown, but's he annoyed by it enough that he's considering taking the to the or instead.

Don't forget riders going to Lower Manhattan can also switch to the at Canal St, or even the at 42nd St (which wouldn't be so good due to the crowds, but I'm just saying). The has a lot of transfers people can utilize. Like the . For example, if you were going from somewhere on the Queens Blvd Line to Union Square, you might take the to the , or the , but now you'd have an easy transfer from the to the at 63rd St. And yes, the is not as good as a full new trunk line, but as long we're getting some people off the Lex and onto lesser-used lines, it's a victory. Maybe you haven't brought this up, but don't worry, this thread has the same "Phase 2 should go to the Bronx instead of turning on 125th St" conversation pretty much every single week. Over and over. Forever and ever.

What about the ? Lefferts Blvd and the Rockaways are in the same borough, but they're not exactly close together. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand the reasoning for labeling these trips as , but it's inconsistent. I'm wondering, why start this now, when....

It's both directions during both rush hours. (Why is the listed as local in the metadata? I have no clue.)

It doesn't matter if 60th St is not at capacity on paper - it's still a complete mess. I assume with you're familiar with the merging delays between the , and . Also, the peak* direction headways (by peak I mean, downtown in the AM and towards 96th in the PM) on Second Avenue are garbage (~8 mins for most of the rush) so I definitely support throwing in a few trains. Don't worry, the 2nd Av trains are no more than 2 trains per hour. Who knows how often service will be then? The amount of service scheduled for 2nd Av is much less than what the MTA predicted in the Environmental Impact Statement (If you're curious - 14 SB trains per hour in the AM Rush during phases 1, 3 and 4, 19(!!!) SB trains per hour during phase 2, 12 reverse-peak trains per hour in the AM, and the also running 14 trains per hour). Phase 3 is what, 15 years away in the absolute best case scenario? It should have no bearing on current service. Lexington Av/59 St is a madhouse, especially the transfer between the Lex and Broadway, which is why we should provide adequate service on an alternate line (i.e. 2nd Ave) The starts later and ends earlier than service to Astoria did - that's mostly where the loss of service was. During the height of rush hour (which is what we're discussing), current service to Astoria is pretty much the same the same as it was with the . And no need for extra service? Again, peak rush hour service as scheduled is garbage, and the Upper East Side is the single densest neighborhood in the entire city. People act like those trains will be rolling empty.

Meh. I don't imagine the MTA is going to go and change the 179th trains to trains via 8th Av, or the Utica Av trains to trains via White Plains Road.... so doing this just seems awfully weird.

I believe the three morning northbound trains were pretty much the same (Sea Beach renovation aside). Pre-2010, the three southbound trains were all in the evening, and went out of service at Kings Highway IIRC. Now, two of those three trips were moved to run in the morning instead, and all three are scheduled to go out of service at 86th Street. As a result, the last southbound train from Astoria is now two trips earlier than it was pre-2010 (9:58 PM vs. 10:17 PM)

It's not a routing issue, the routing will be the same either way; it's a construction issue. Chrystie Street itself is not wide enough to fit all 4 tracks ( and Second Avenue tracks) and 2 platforms at Grand Street on one level without encroaching under the buildings on the sidewalk and Sara D. Roosevelt Park. So to lessen the impact of construction on the neighborhood, the MTA chose to have the tracks below the 6th Av tracks. Building deeper underground would also allow the use of a tunnel boring machine and reduce the amount of cut-and-cover construction needed. As a side effect of this, Chatham Square and Houston Street stations will be deeper than they would have been originally (original plans called for the tracks to be above the tracks at Houston St, but the current plan has it running below instead.) Although the MTA said that the Chinatown tunnel could still be used to store ventilation equipment, so it might not go totally to waste.

No. We've already seen the signs at the new stations and they don't mention the anywhere. The MTA's treatment of limited rush hour only services is awfully inconsistent. to Nereid Av: openly displayed to Utica Av: hidden to Rockaway Park: openly displayed to New Lots: hidden to 179th: not displayed on the map, but is listed on the platforms at Parsons-Hillside and 179th St All of these are displayed in the service guide at least, the to 86th doesn't even get that. Since the service guide seems to be an afterthought now that it's no longer attached to the map, it wouldn't surprise me if they neglected to add the trips to 96th St.

Yes, Phase 1 uses the old tunnel from 99th St to 105th St. The MTA has stated that they also plan on using the old tunnel from 110th St to 120th St for Phase 2. Since the two tunnel segments are only a few blocks apart, I don't even see how they could use one but not the other.