Via Garibaldi 8

Just listen to the song... Enough said... :cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXs9-XEiDoY&NR=1

Classic rock baby... :cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DFsBcVMDA

This song makes reminds me of my travels in Italy, as does the video...

"Wake up dead" reminds me of the potential consequences of cheating on a chick... lol

We can't see it because it's linked to your computer.

Well I tried taking it off of my Facebook pics... Why is it so hard to upload a pic on this site?

The pic is on my profile page...

http://www.nyctransitforums.com/forums/album.php?albumid=356&pictureid=1325

Me when I'm on a call and using tethering.

 

Me when I'm using a headset and finding my way with Google Maps.

 

Me when I'm using a headset and trying to find out about any MTA service delays.

 

Me when I'm using a headset and trying to send an MMS at the same time.

Okay, I see... Have you ever tried doing something or better yet one thing w/o the headset...? lol

iPhone for Verizon will suck, cant be on voice and use data at the same time. Big drawback for a computer geek like myself...I'll take GSM and Android or Windows powered phones anyday. Samsung makes the best out there right now. Not over priced like Apple products and very customizable. Oh and you dont get raped when you want to install apps like Apple does to its customers. These guys are so greedy they are trying to patent the term "app store".

 

I will eventually get the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Who would be on voice and use data at the same time anyway??? Maybe that's a good thing. Today's society is too overwhelmed w/gadgets anyway. The other day while in Whole Foods, I observed several people just to see if any of them were actually paying attention to what they were doing... One was pushing a shopping cart with her head down texting away on her phone. Another had headphones on w/music blasting in another world.... Both had shopping carts and had no clue where they were going since they already distracted.

I'm in favor of technology as I'm big on it also, but at some point there needs to be a balance. These gadgets are just leading to more people spacing out. It's amazing that they're aren't more car accidents and the like. No one can hear anything because they've got the music blasting to block everyone out. No one can see anything because they're zoned out with the iPhones, Blackberries and other smart phones. We've become a society obsessed with gadgets and obsessed w/zoning out, which quite frankly baffles me.

I'm actually one of the people responsible for getting folks out of my office in the case of an emergency. It's impossible to get anyone to pay attention when building management gets folks out for training drills because they can't stop texting on their phones. Really ridiculous.

These tech companies are so greed and interested in turning a profit. They should be doing more to see that folks are using their products in a responsible manner. Me personally, I only use my gadgets on the express bus at a level where I can hear so that I can be alert should an emergency occur.

All current Verizon Wireless subscribers: have fun with your mobile data while you can, because when the Verizon iPhone hits, expect your mobile data service to go the way of AT&T's.........raped.

lol... I don't know... I think Verizon has always prided itself on having good service. I actually used them for a while when I was back in college and never had any problems with service or billing. I use them now for FiOS and same thing... They have a different set up than AT&T and I don't think they'd take on the iPhone if they couldn't handle it, but I'll wait and see because I actually want to switch my data card and smartphone over to them now that they have a good provider in Europe and some decent World phones. I'm done w/AT&T. :mad:

just got my last grade. I'm done with college!

And now the real work begins... I don't envy you. Very rough finding a job for college grads right now... :eek:

I finally gave Blackberry the boot after nearly five years of great service. The thing is I finally got bored with the Blackberry OS and their lack of a good full featured browser and moved on to the Android operating system and I don't miss Blackberry at all.

 

Three weeks ago I jumped ship on Verizon Wireless and joined Sprint for their Everything Data Plan with the HTC EVO 4G. So far I have zero regrets leaving Verizon Wireless as Sprints network seems to be the same. I have not had one dropped call since moving to Sprint even though I know it'll happen soon. As for the HTC EVO 4G, it is a great device and I have never had this much fun using a smartphone in my life. As for 4G, it hasn't been officially rolled out in New York but it is available you just got to be in the right places.

 

Blackberry, what Blackberry?

 

Let's have a discussion on what you guys are using and what you prefer. Let us know what your future plans are with smartphones.

In Europe, I used Nokia which was great and didn't have any problems. When I came back to the States, I started off w/a Sony Ericsson, then moved to a Nokia, both of which were smart phones and I've only used smart phones.

I am not big on touch screens for many reasons and I just find Blackberries to be practical for my needs. However, I too am becoming a bit bored with them and of late they have not met my expectations for browsing, etc. I also think the quality has gone down in terms of durability. My first Blackberry was "Made in Canada" and it was a real work horse... :cool:

I currently have AT&T for my Blackberry and have not been that impressed. Verizon has decent coverage, but subpar phones and up until recently outrageous overseas "packages". I believe they've partnered w/a European carrier, but I'm sure who, maybe Vodafone.... I've heard stories about Sprint, so I'm in limbo for now.

My hope is to get some sort of package w/Verizon once I settle on a decent smart phone (whatever that is) and then go from there since I believe they offer better overseas options and world phones last I checked. I have FiOS w/them currently and it's been great and we use Verizon in my office also.

I will say this though... In terms of cell phones, Europe and Japan are years ahead of us. I started using cell phones in Europe and was surprised at the crap they were selling here in the States at such juiced up prices. I hope that we will come up to speed in terms of coverage and phones soon, but I'm not holding my breath.

It came to me when I realized that all the buses and jitney connected Union City to Manhattan only serve the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Though if I were to run the X40, I'd only charge $2.50-3 from Union City.(or $2.25 if the MTA runs it)

Do you think many people would use it from Staten Island?

About that, I found out there's a commuter van company that provides service along the X90. It's called Mario's Transportation and they charge $5 to Wall St($6 to WFC)

 

But to the topic.

 

X40 Gannon Av-Midtown Express

A peak direction express service between Gannon Avenue and Midtown via NJ Turnpike with select trips making stops along 30/31 Streets in Union City to pick up(Inbound) and drop-off(Outbound) customers between NYC and Union City

 

 

Northern Terminus: 59 St/Madison Avenue

Southern Terminus: Schmidts Lane/Slosson Avenue

 

Stops in Staten Island:

All X10 between Slosson Avenue and Lambert Ln.

 

Stops in Manhattan:

All X23/X24/AE7 stops in Manhattan.

The folks in Yorkville don't want to deal w/the subway nor the SBS on the M15 and they can afford $5 - $6 each way.

This X40 sounds weird... Why Union City????

I believe the X90 stays in manhattan throughout the trip.

But it was axed... I was hoping to get to ride it too since I go up by the Upper East Side/Yorkville on occasion for the eateries there, but never got the chance

Create a bus route is so EASY! You can reply stops if you want to BUT it will be too much. so reply at least 2 replies only. All you do is just create your bus number and boroughs for ex (Made up or real): B40, M62, Bx66, S23, Q103, X14. After you do that, tell the northern and southern terminal stop and tell where it will be running for ex: via 18th Avenue and via 116th Street. So good luck. It beings... now!

Extend it at least until Richmond Avenue on Staten Island and run it to 57th street in Manhattan. It's first/last stop would be the service road and Targee St. on Staten Island.

off topic much?

I know we went off of the rails... It's a crazy train mate.

i dont think thats true, the bus depot in the bronx (west farms) clean the buses all the time every nite. so i can say they are clean when i get on in the morning. and if you are at the last stop and they come on too clean up its only for the most part, they do a quick clean but the real cleaning is done when they take it into service at the shops.

Spring Creek Depot keeps very clean express buses, as does Eastchester Depot and most of the MTA Bus Depots in the Bronx. Staten Island is another issue though. I hope that will change now that Charleston Depot is open.

im sorry too say this but we arent in other countries, this city is nasty i can tell you rite now the reason why they are dirty is not because of the MTA its because the people we have here, nasty isnt half of it. other countries have it better because they have people are not nasty, they dont throw garbage on the floor like they do here. i cant tell you how sad when i get off at 1230am and see the mobile wash unit clean up the stations top too bottom and clean the cars just too go a few hours later its back too nasty like it never was done, its the people not them/

You are right, but I also know that their idea of cleaning is sweeping in most cases at best. I have only seen the subway cars get half mopped on occasion, so yes, people are nasty here no question, but cars aren't cleaned that thoroughly either. The express buses that I ride are fairly clean because people tend not to be as filthy, but even those can be dirty at times. It's my understanding that the buses aren't cleaned during the winter (outside or inside)...?

Do you have any idea how many people the transports daily? It's somewhere in the millions. That means that the trains aren't idling for long periods of time for workers to clean them. Sometimes, the train leaves a couple of minutes after arriving.

 

Also remember that some of the cleaners have been laid off and the remaining ones there only clean on one end of the route, not both anymore.

 

 

Concerning the dinginess of the cars, see above.

 

On the automated announcements, if a person can't pay attention to the stops the train makes, I doubt it'll matter if said person is on an NTT or older train. Also, aren't the R142(a)s cold all the time?

 

OT: @chris: No offense, but your grammar is atrocious. It's hard to decipher what the hell you wrote because it's one long run-on sentence.

And I don't dispute any of it... I just asked when do they get a good scrubbing? The MTA has previously stated that subway cars are in a good state in terms of cleanliness, but looking at some of them, I would beg to differ on that.

The fact that they move so many people as to why the subway cars are filthy (even the new ones) is a poor excuse. Look at other countries that move large amounts of people and look at how clean their subway cars are... You'll have to do better than that.

the R62s are old and nasty i ride them now and than on the 7 and the 3 the the cars are cold in the winter and hot in the summer they dont have automated announcements so we have to hope the conductor do it and the speakers arent good so you may not hear it if they do it i cant stand them and people do care what come in the station if they are cold and cant hear announcements they care and the R142a are perfect they do all of the and clear i can go on and on

And I remember when the MTA came up with this ridiculous number in terms of how much it would cost to actually keep the subway stations and cars clean as they should be... I know I know... It's a large system and blah blah blah... Having the new subway cars are great, but clearly they're not being cleaned. In fact when do they actually give these subway cars a good scrubbing? I know they are cleaned when they overhaul some of them, but how often is that? Maybe every few years at best?

When the R62As that ran on the were transferred to the in 2002-03 they were not old cars (16-18 years old). I rode them every day when they were on the and I ride these same cars every day on the now. Believe me, they look and ride almost as good now as they did when they ran on Lex seven, eight years ago. They're 25-year old cars. They're not old cars. And truthfully, I think most riders aren't going to care if it's an R62A or R142A that pulls into Pelham Bay Park or 86th Street. What they will care about is that the train gets them to where they need to go quickly, safely and in reasonable comfort (in other words, no hot cars in summer).

 

The reason the got 62s instead of new tech trains when they were new is because Corona's barn couldn't handle the R142's roof-mounted a/c units at the time. There were reportedly some issues with the line's third rail having difficulty powering the test R142 trains. And of course they didn't have enough B-cars to make 11-car trains. But two of those three issues have been resolved and the R188 contract will resolve the B-car issues. Not to mention that the NTTs were designed with CBTC in mind and the R62s were a back-to- basics design. It would be a lot easier and less expensive to refit NTTs with CBTC than it would be to refit the barebones R62As.

 

 

Still, they need to clean up the interiors of those 62s. All the scratching on the stainless steel patterns

I rode the 7 train last year to see a client out in Flushing and those trains need to be cleaned up. I certainly wouldn't sit down on them.

They're going to be installing a CBTC system on the 7, and these are the cars that can use the system with modification.

 

(CBTC = Communications Based Train Control)

And this will allow them to add more trains and have the spaced closer together. Well it would suck to have the R62s go back to the 6 line. I like them, but it's time for those cars to be replaced. Besides I think most passengers agree that the newer cars have far better lighting, climate control and announcements that that are actually audible.

Like it or not, I still think the most likely destination for the displaced R62As from the will be the . [they're not going to the because of Flatbush and at times 180th.]

This has nothing to do with the 'politics' of the UES. If those riders don't like to ride the old cars, then they can take the bus to the West side or try their luck with the taxies. They should be fortunate to have anything serving them.

 

Now what I still wonder is if they will link those single R62A cars into 5-car sets. Then again at least maybe there will be rfws again on the Pelham line.

 

Unrelated: I still think the MTA should think about using 60' IRT cars [as long as the R143/R160s but narrow like the R142s]. Why go thru this hassle over the 11th car? I mean is Steinway that much of a problem that cars can't be longer than 51' long?

Why the need to do all of this shuffling? I mean they spent some cash (maybe not a ton of cash, but still had to spend something) moving those trains over to the 7 line to replace the red birds and now they're going to move them again? Why exactly is it so vital for the 7 line to have these new cars? In other words, aside from the new trains, automated announcements, etc, what other benefits would these trains give 7 train riders?

The 4/5/6 already has ATS. Actually ATS is a problem within it self because when it screws up the whole Lex becomes a log jam. If they put R62As back on the ATS will still work.

 

 

Is ATS part of the reason that the local 6 train is often quicker than the 4 and 5 express? I mean sometimes they say there's train traffic and I'm thinking that isn't possible because I've been waiting a good bit for a train (considering it's the 4 5 6 line) so how could there be train traffic ahead?

 

Reduced crowing on the Lex 4/5/6 is something you will never see as long as the Second Av Subway is never built.[/QUOTE]

 

I won't debate that at all... This is what I heard from the MTA and why they implemented ATS with the goal of reducing crowding since you could squeeze more trains in on those lines and have less spacing between the trains.