Bedford Av stop on the (L) train future is getting worse

[w8Hou]

From Metro NY article:

Williamsburg expansion scares subway riders

Straphangers at Williamsburg’s Bedford Avenue stop often have to let two or three overcrowded trains pass by before one arrives with enough room to board during the morning rush. Some even ride deeper into Brooklyn just to squeeze into a Manhattan-bound train.

 

Passengers now face another 1,100 riders each morning at the teeming station, expected to arrive with a $1.4 billion 2,200-apartment development at the 11.2-acre waterfront Domino Sugar factory.

 

“It’s only going to get worse,” area City Councilman Steve Levin said at a recent hearing on the project, noting the strain from other high-rises going up on the waterfront, including the Edge and Northside Piers.

 

Groups opposing the buildings want its developer — Community Preservation Corporation Resources — to shrink the project. Some want it to pay for a shuttle bus into Manhattan.

 

CPC Resources’ Susan Pollock said they’re exploring possible ferry service at the site. Plus, she emphasized, Domino would be built over 10 years.

 

Bedford statistics

 

- Bedford  overcrowding: 6.8 million weekday riders

- 4th busiest stop in Brooklyn

- Busiest stop serving a single subway line in Brooklyn

- 8th busiest single line station citywide, after four No. stops, a No. stop in Manhattan and two No. stations in Queens

- Least chance of a seat among lines — ranked by the Straphangers Campaign

 

Link: http://www.metro.us/us/article/2010/06/24/06/1857-82/index.xml

[Y2Julio]

It's all those damn hipsters.

[INDman]

Those co-ops wont be ready for another 4 or 5 years.

[mark1447]

Would a skip-stop service help the ?

[67thAve]

It can't. There are only 2 tracks.

[NX Express]

It can't. There are only 2 tracks.

Exactly! Make a skip-stop service, like the from B'way Jct. to Jamaica.

[LRG]

Time to add more trains.

[S78 via Hylan]

Time to add more trains.

 

That could cause more delays though...

[Eric B]

What they really should do that wouldn't even cost that much is just tie in the other end of the spur track on the 6th Ave. end, so that trains could drop out at 6th Ave, and head back without having to go to 8th Ave. at all. Trains are usually stuck waiting at 6th anyway, so that time could be used to clean them out.

You could specify an ‹L› service that only runs from Myrtle to 6th.

 

I sent in the suggestion, and they rejected it based on not wanting to add platform conductors!

 

I also sent in an idea to add a dropoff platform to track 3 at Canarsie, which is the first yard track. The platform would lead right out to where the B42 is. There is space where the fense between 2 and 3 is. They would only have to upgrade the signals to mainline standards. They rejected this too.

[MTR Admiralty]

What really needs to happen is, more transit lines in that section of Williamsburg. Had the Second System been built, crowds like that perhaps won't happen today. I'm not saying that we should immediately build the Second System because that takes a lot of planning and money, but more should be done to address this.

Perhaps in the interim:

-Bus Rapid Transit from points in Williamsburg into Manhattan proper

-Operate community shuttle routes that can distribute riders to different subway stations and BRT

-Possible conversion from the aforementioned BRT into LRT so that it could handle additional capacity

[T to Dyre Avenue]

What really needs to happen is, more transit lines in that section of Williamsburg. Had the Second System been built, crowds like that perhaps won't happen today. I'm not saying that we should immediately build the Second System because that takes a lot of planning and money, but more should be done to address this.

Perhaps in the interim:

-Bus Rapid Transit from points in Williamsburg into Manhattan proper

-Operate community shuttle routes that can distribute riders to different subway stations and BRT

-Possible conversion from the aforementioned BRT into LRT so that it could handle additional capacity

This probably could have been something the MTA could have done with the B39 bus that ran over the Williamsburg Bridge. They could have extended it from both ends to better serve the East Village and Lower Manhattan. But, no, they decided to discontinue the 39 instead.

[Ridgewoodian]

The new will probably help with this a little.

[LRG]

The new will probably help with this a little.

 

How so? The (M)/(M2) doesn't run anywhere near Greenpoint/North Side Williamsburg.

[Urbanfortitude]

How so? The (M)/(M2) doesn't run anywhere near Greenpoint/North Side Williamsburg.

 

Its somewhat of a walk but not too far. I've done it before.

[INDman]

How so? The (M)/(M2) doesn't run anywhere near Greenpoint/North Side Williamsburg.

 

No, but it does run through the southern end of Williamsburg.

[LRG]

Its somewhat of a walk but not too far. I've done it before.

 

Skateboarding from Bedford Avenue and North Seventh Street to the Plaza is like a good five minutes...and there's an incline heading up Roebling Street as well.

[MTR Admiralty]

This probably could have been something the MTA could have done with the B39 bus that ran over the Williamsburg Bridge. They could have extended it from both ends to better serve the East Village and Lower Manhattan. But, no, they decided to discontinue the 39 instead.

That's a big mistake

[checkmatechamp13]

How so? The (M)/(M2) doesn't run anywhere near Greenpoint/North Side Williamsburg.

 

You won't have as many riders from Myrtle Avenue on the train. Plus, as INDman said, the serves Southern Williamsburg, so riders who live between the and will choose the instead of the .

[vanshnookenraggen]

It would be easy to say "build a new subway" but it would take so long to get going that the crowding in Williamsburg would just continue to get worse. Skip-stop might be the only other option but with such a demand I don't think it would be very popular to have trains not stopping at crowded stations.

 

This is one of the reasons I stared the futureNYCSubway project, because I could see the city and MTA not paying enough attention to population growth and subway demand. They should have switched the over 5 years ago. In another 5 years it might just be impossible to get a train from Williamsburg and a new subway will seem much more desirable.

[R110B]

A sugesstion would be to some sort of express lower level stop at 8th ave Bedford ave and myrlte/wykoff and connect to broadway jct and terminate at atlantic old side.

[MTR Admiralty]

A sugesstion would be to some sort of express lower level stop at 8th ave Bedford ave and myrlte/wykoff and connect to broadway jct and terminate at atlantic old side.

Money, money, money...

[Ridgewoodian]

How so? The (M)/(M2) doesn't run anywhere near Greenpoint/North Side Williamsburg.

 

Take a look at a geographically accurate map with the subway lines superimposed in their correct positions. (Google Maps is good for this.) The and are like the Tigris and Euphrates of Brooklyn, bounding a very definite geographical area (MesopoTRAINia?). Between Myrtle-Wyckoff, where the two lines come together, and each line's last stop before crossing the river there are seven stations and eight for the . For the most part, the stations on the two lines aren't all that far apart (and by that, I mean on the ground, for a pedestrian walking between them, NOT as the crow flies). Knickerbocker on the to Dekalb on the is about half a mile. Flushing to Montrose is about six tenths of a mile. You can go through each of the stations and see how close they are to their nearest neighbors. Now, half a mile, six-tenths, three-quarters - they're not quite "right around the corner" but they're not a huge treks, either. And remember: most people DON'T live right next door to a train station, they mostly live at greater or lesser distances from them. So a lot of people living between the two lines probably live reasonably close - say, within four-tenths of a mile, maybe a ten minute walk - of both lines. For a lot of them it's probably one of those "six of one, half a dozen of the other" situations as to which train they should take. And one of the main deciding factors is: Does the train go where they need it to go? Midtown is the most important business district in the city, more so now even than Lower Manhattan. The comes closer to Midtown than the (M2) ever did which is perhaps one reason why it's become much more crowded over the years. The is going to make more stops in Midtown proper - 14th, 34th, 42nd, Rockefeller Center, etc., which, presumably, would be the final destinations for many of those riders. So now a lot of them will have a viable choice. Instead of walking north a few blocks to the they'll be able to walk south a few blocks to the , which promises to be less crowded and might well get them closer to where they need to go. Every person who makes that decision frees up a space on the for someone who either lives so close to it that it would make no sense to hike to another line or who actually needs to be on it because it goes where they want to go. That, in short, is why I think the will help, at least a little, with the crowding on the .

[LRG]

Well something else that can be taken into further account is the fact that those who live north of Grand Street (splits North and South Sides on Williamsburg) will most likely walk and take the because...it's what's closer to them; those who live south of Grand Street will take the most likely. But because unless you choose to take the B62 to get to the Bridge Plaza then you'd have a lot of walking to do to get to the line. But I doubt those who already live in North Side Williamsburg will leave the line because it's so frequent. And the times I've taken the in the morning/afternoon when I was heading to/coming from HS from a few years back trains were never backed up.

[INDman]

If being on a less crowded train means enough to them, they will make the walk. If it does not mean that much to them, f**k'em, it's not like there isn't another opetion. They are just choosing not to take it.

[St Louis Car 09]

 

Would a skip-stop service help the ?

No not with CBTC.