Via Garibaldi 8

Came out good... I guess I should have the BxM2 done. I see it in the photo... @Lawrence St

Sounds like you're all over the place. If we're talking about more service for subway deserts that's another thing entirely and there could be a need for more of it. Be that as it may, there are a host of reasons why people opt for the subway vs the LIRR or MNRR. Generally speaking, the commuter rail stations in most areas of the City are not that accessible, so they are a pain to reach and take you to a handful of destinations. The price is less of an issue now.

If there was demand for more service, it would already be running. You obviously do not use the commuter rails as I do to see what ridership is like. I am speaking as a commuter. Both MNRR & LIRR are still down over 30% in terms of ridership because most riders are still work from home and likely will be permanently, so you are proposing to run service for the hell of it, which makes no sense. Public transportation doesn't run on air. It takes money to fund, so the idea that "politicos" are just going to "step aside" is comical. Each region wants their slice of the pie relative to what they spend in terms of funding their services. That's why CT has always acted the way that they have when it comes to MNRR service. They are focused on their taxpayers and the services they use, not subsidizing someone else's commutes.

A better question is how many people NEED Grand Central or Penn Station as their destination vs the tons of other places that the four subway lines go along Queens Blvd? You're talking about two big destinations, yes, but the subways cover far more destinations than the LIRR do.

Oh please. Forest Hills and Kew Gardens both have subways and both have pretty frequent LIRR service already where necessary, with CityTicket to boot. You have to understand that such communities have a balance of people that use public transit (subways, express buses, LIRR) and then there are people that drive. Queens generally speaking is not as connected to Manhattan to have a need for such frequent service, no matter how cheap the fares were. If we were comparing Kew Gardens, Forest Hills and my neighborhood, I would say Riverdale is more of a bedroom community out of the three where you will see more commuting to Manhattan, and even here you have a chunk of people that drive into Manhattan for work, leisure, etc. There's also the density factor. Neither of these neighborhoods are that dense to need a commuter rail running that frequently. That's just a fact. Both neighborhoods have a chunk of people that own and either live or work in Queens and/or drive. If they didn't have a subway, then you'd have a better argument, but even if they ran every 15 minutes, they would be hard pressed to compete with the subway lines on Queens Blvd. There's also the work from home factor that takes away some ridership. If more people rode, they would have more frequent service. Hell even in my area we get a train every 30 minutes off-peak. The Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil stations both see good usage, but during off-peak, neither station is ever packed. Goes back to what I noted earlier. Then there's the other issue. They only go to Grand Central or Penn Station. The subways and express buses both cover more areas. That's exactly why my use of Metro-North is lower compared to the other options. It's only worth taking Metro-North if my destination is Grand Central or the surrounding areas.

Commuter rail service is frequent in Japan because Japan is a pretty dense and compact country overall. The suburbs of NYC are not as dense, therefore less ridership. If there was demand for more service, sure. That said, the suburbs have already been moving to increase housing by commuter stations, so whatever growth is going to happen will happen (organically). The railroads have also been adamantly clear that they cannot compete with the subway, nor do they have the capacity to run service like a subway because they are railroads.

They are commuter railroads, not subways. People really need to stop with this nonsense.

@Lawrence St The 84th & Madison Av BxM3/BxM4 stop has been updated with new signage. I think that's it right? The other BxM3 stop was addressed some weeks ago with new signage.

Elevators... There will be one on each side, just like W 231st. If they are as slow as the ones on W 231st, forget it. Definitely needed though. The community asked for elevators at that station years ago, the refused to install them. Only took them several years later. There are so few stations up here with elevators. It's another reason I absolutely hate taking the subway. If you're going to Manhattan along the before it heads underground, you are walking up stairs the entire trip. Walk up several flights of stairs to reach the platform, then walk up stairs when you get off. Then there are the endless transfers. Felt like I ran a marathon (a bus and three trains later - no thanks).

That was only to replace the ones that take you to the platform, which were God awful, but not for ADA accessibility. This is basically to allow for people to take an elevator from street level to then reach those elevators if they need the . They need to use someone that knows what their doing because each time that they've replaced elevators in Upper Manhattan, they have started breaking down a few days later.

What you're asking for is almost impossible because some depots have more demanding lines than others.

True, but unfortunately, a lot of the delays with the rollout of OMNY has been due to software issues.

My stance is that they need to have more eyes on the buses out on the street, not having everything come from the Command Center. As far as Byford goes, he was more approachable than previous predecessors, but the bus service was actually terrible under him. He gets all sorts of praise, but my commutes were becoming unbearable under his watch, both via bus and subway. The only thing I could rely on was Metro-North, but otherwise, couldn't depend on anything showing up. Missing scheduled buses morning and night. The subways were a disaster meaning either arriving late to my meetings or having to run out of the station and grab an Uber (and this was only in Manhattan for subway trips - I can't imagine the outer boroughs). Maybe he meant well and I've heard that from a number of people at the off the record, but he was also not aware of the political aspects of the job. Trying to push through ambitious bus redesigns that were masked service cuts is an example. To his credit though, he showed up to a number of events in person to speak directly to riders. As far as the subway goes, I just found long waits (and still do whenever I have taken it lately), so my stance is to try to avoid it whenever possible. I will say the last time I took it, I saw cops in the actual cars themselves and no homeless people anywhere, which was shocking. I was just waiting to see some mentally disturbed individual either at a train station or on the train. Must've been my lucky day. lol Even if they are using it correctly, you'd still have the back-up because the side streets have overflow onto 5th Av, plus all of the vehicles having to turn. There is no easy solution and the DOT at this time is not interested in fixing it because it would mean that they would have to make tweaks to the traffic signals for a chunk of Midtown.

If you're tapping with your phone that is linked to a credit or debit card, I don't know how that would work. Probably one of those things that's either all in or nothing.

For what it's worth, I guess you could say that farebeating has always existed to some degree. I remember the seniors throwing in a few coins into the farebox and no one would ever say anything because they were seniors so I guess the attitude was they've already paid into the system. Other than that you didn't see such rampant farebeating. I think one of the reasons you have electeds just saying to make it free is #1 farebeating is not being prosecuted (the DAs have made this abundantly clear), therefore the police aren't going to bother anymore enforcing something that won't be upheld by the DAs (and I don't blame them either). #2 In the past people used public transit because they were kind of forced to just because of how many people traveled at the same time. Now WFH has changed that so people can drive and are and they don't need to use the . Some bus operators used to say "If you don't like the service, take a taxi or drive". Well that's exactly what is happening. lol Now the City I believe is very much concerned about that. People not using mass transit not only hurts the but also hurts the City. You have less economic activity for one and less tax revenues being generated, meaning less money for the City. It's already happening in the commercial real estate and if it doesn't change with the , they will have to cut a chunk of service. That is approaching sooner rather than later. Making it free, you have a chance to convert people and get people back perhaps that are in between. You likely are not getting back people that switched to driving at all times. I hear more and more such stories in fact. You are correct though... They really need to work on improving the service. Below I'll list the things I see just with the local buses: -Lots of service cancelled with no notice. -Excessively long waits because trips are cancelled without notice. -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. -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.

Then they can have one or two more traffic agents assist, but sometimes they actually make things worse.

I'm not sure why you're talking about "homie" when people of ALL colors are farebeating these days... That means Whites, Blacks, Latinos and so on and that includes the express buses. Now there isn't much fare beating on the express bus compared to the local buses, but the last few people that have got on the bus with either a sob story or had the wrong Metrocard were all White. We had a young White chick get on at 63rd & Broadway with some story. Driver gave her a talking to and let her on. A few years ago, we had this hippie looking White guy where I live in Riverdale that not only wanted to ride for free, BUT thought he needed to ride in style to boot. A few times he got on and after that the drivers stopped allowing it. He approached me once asking for me to dip for him. Absolutely not. No one gets a free dip from me unless you are paying for it and since I had seen him before and knew his little scheme it disgusted me even more because I got the feeling that he was just trying to get over. If he was truly broke he can take the bus to the subway. I've also seen some Latino kids get on the Bx10 and ask to ride for free here and there, which I don't get since they get a free pass. This was in the morning, so I don't understand how they could've used all of their rides that early. Obviously they lived elsewhere, as they were coming from one of the schools, but that means you took one trip from home to school and then the return trip, so what happened to the Metrocard? I saw this a lot when I lived on Staten Island too with school kids of all backgrounds seemingly not having their Metrocard as if they were letting someone else use it or something. Speaking of farebeating, on Staten Island people of various backgrounds farebeat, esp. the local buses and occasionally the express bus, so the whole "homie" remark is comical. It's also comical that some "advocacy" groups out here like the Riders Alliance come up with the excuse that people are hopping the turnstiles because of poverty and then they bring color into it when I see plenty of people that are doing just fine not paying. That is such BS and actually it is an underhanded way putting down certain groups. As someone of mixed background, I find it offensive because it assumes that certain groups always "need a hand", as if they are either too incompetent or incapable of doing better.... In other words, it's like saying that they are inherently unable to do better.

The six minute proposal is not from the . It was proposed by the Riders Alliance.

This is the same busway that has camera enforcement, so all of those people should be ticketed automatically, and thus no need for the NYPD. As the tickets mount, those people will stop doing it. That is usually how it works. Photo is taken of the license plate and the ticket is mailed accordingly. --- I'll add something that I forgot to mention. The reason that camera enforcement was opted for is because it is more effective (both in terms of cost and enforcement) than having the NYPD chase people out of the bus lanes all day. Previously under the de Blasio administration, NYCDOT came up with a program where they had traffic agents go around and literally chase drivers out of bus lanes, bus stops, etc. - I saw it along 6th Av a few times. There are simply not enough agents to go around doing that, and in some cases, I'd see a traffic agent chasing one guy out of the bus lane or a bus stop on one block and on the next block you'd have another violator, so that program was ended rather quickly (I confirmed with the DOT during one meeting on bus lanes) and they are moving to camera enforcement, both at street level AND on the actual local buses. The pilot program started on a few local lines and is being expanded, but it needs to be funded, as it is costly. The also must receive approval from Albany to do what they want to do, which is expand the camera program to more lines #1 and to cover more than just bus lanes, but also bus stops.

No. The BxM5 was a proposed rush-hour only route to cover Woodlawn and a small part of the BxM11 (as well as a new segment of service near the City border), which didn't make sense as it was. BxM11 riders were very clear that they did not want to go to Bronxdale Av for the BxM11. They preferred the bus as it is on White Plains Rd. In any event, the current BxM11 serves the same segment of Boston Rd that the proposed BxM11 does and only because of the street layout in that area (subway pillars, etc.). At that point, Boston Rd is basically like a North-South corridor, and not an East-West corridor, which is what you're getting at. Express buses function mainly North-South (yes I know some run East-West for segments), but some of that is due to a lack of subway. The distance on Boston Road is such that people can make their way to the BxM10 or BxM11. In other words, I don't see how a dedicated express bus along Boston Road competing with two other express bus lines would make sense.

I don't know when I get it and why until I check my account later on and I believe twice now I've had it, but they are trips I do all the time, so I'm not sure what led to the second transfer. As for the screen, if they programmed it only to show Xfer, sure, but anything more than that wouldn't be good. The Metrocard screen showed more in part because most people could not see their transactions online so easily (some people were aware and could, esp. if they had an EasyPay Metrocard, but most could not). With OMNY anyone can.

I'm speaking from experience. When we had hurricane Sandy and they made the express buses free, they were packed as in either every seat filled or standing room only (every trip - to say I was annoyed is putting it mildly). People that normally wouldn't take it rode because why not? It's free. lol Even if the trips on the local buses were longer and some transfers were needed, if you don't care about time, people will ride them because it saves them technically $5.50 round trip or more depending on how many places they are going. What I've been hearing now from people esp. now with the hybrid schedule or WFH, when they do transit, quite a few of them have noted that they'll take the local bus, even though it takes 2-3 times longer because they are concerned about safety. Making it free would just give them another reason to ride. Now of course people that are in a rush will either opt for Uber or the subway depending on how much they are willing to spend, but anytime you have something being provided for free, people will make sacrifices to take advantage of it.

Easiest solution is just to link whatever payment method you use for OMNY to your OMNY account online. You can log-in and see what you were charged. Sometimes I'm surprised to learn that I get a SECOND transfer thereby saving me a fare. What's important is that you use the same payment method for your entire trip, so if you tap with your phone to start, continue to do so for the trip and the OMNY reader will see the transfer stored and apply it to your trip. Now yesterday OMNY was down so you couldn't see anything. It's up today, but I can tell what I was charged just by looking at my balance on OMNY card. I prefer it just saying "GO". The screen is so big that everyone would be able to see your information. That's another reason I switched to any OMNY card was because I don't want my card information displayed when tapping... People can see what bank you bank with your credit cards, card info, etc. all while tapping. No thanks.

You're underestimating how many people would avoid it. When the local buses were free they were a lot more crowded than they are now and that was at the peak of COVID. I would say with inflation being what it is, I could see a number of people riding them, even with long trips. Some people already ride the local buses now because they are concerned about safety on the train (and that's for long trips), but making the local buses free would absolutely increase ridership substantially. If you rode the local buses all the time, you'd essentially have free transportation vs. whatever you'd pay for the subway.

For what? The BxM10 terminates at Boston Rd as it is. Most of the residents drive, go down and take the BxM10, use the subway or the BxM11.